My young traveling companion was on his way south with his mother and her partner for a camping vacation. He was well informed on many topics and we both enjoyed our short time together. At one point after he had eaten the lunch his mom had packed, as well as some of the chocolate bar I had put in my lunch, he put his head on my shoulder and fell asleep for a time.
There were also a few vineyards as well.
After I changed trains, the mountains began to appear. Unfortunately, I missed one of my connections (one of the trains I was riding was late) and so I had to take a 4th train (oh my) to be able to arrive at the station where Pierlo had agreed to pick me up.
Pierlo couldn't pick me up right away, so I munched on some fruit and an emergency ration of cereal and took some pictures of the station and surrounding area. Below is one of those infamous "ticket punching machines." As I mentioned in an earlier blog, if you don't make use of it, you are subject to a heavy fine.
On our drive to Esconnetts, a town or 60 people, I began to snap some pictures as the car was speeding along. Pierlo (an expert in computers) and I chatted about his and his wife Sandrine's life before moving to the south of France. They started their professional lives in Strasbourg, and first moved to Nimes when Sandrine, a psychologist, accepted a new job. While they lived in Nîmes, Pierlo took the opportunity to do some Wwoofing himself and little by little learned how to build straw houses. He and Sandrine had talked about some day in retirement building one for themselves, but somewhere along the way, they had two children and decided it would be a good life for the children to have more land and also to live in a rural area. They began eating more wild greens and at some point, when there was another job change for Sandrine, they moved to Castillon just a few kilometers from Esconnetts, living above the Town Hall. Then, they found a wonderful piece of land, high on a mountain top with a magnificent view. They bought it and decided to build their own straw house.
Here we have arrived at that piece of land and the one below is one of the many views from the site of the new house. There will be plenty more pictures of the view in this and other blogs.
But first, below, is a place a weary traveler needs upon arrival. A fancy dry toilet! Pretty simple construction - a little wooden "outhouse" equipped with a large garbage can underneath as well as a small pail of sawdust, provided free of charge from a nearby sawmill.
There are some interesting "rules" written inside this "comfort station." One of the most important is that you cover your "contribution" with a certain amount of sawdust and if there isn't any more, there is a another large garbage can just outside where you must replenish the supply of the important material used in this "system" of elimination.
This particular "container" has been reserved for this year's contributions whereas the next container has been retired for three years and is now used to grow squash. It seems that allowing at least three years to pass before using this free compost is best if you are going to grow food for human consumption.
Enough on toilets for now as it is dinner time. It seems to me that first night I really did no work to help with the dinner. There were two other Wwoofers you will meet soon. One of them had been here for about 3 weeks, I think, and the other who had been here one week would stay one week more. Here Pierlo and his 8-year-old son, Jules are working on dinner. Usually Sandrine is there to greet Wwoofers as well, but the first week I was there she had a conference in Paris so Pierlo was on his own with, of course. the help of his capable children as well as the help of the Wwoofers who all help to prepare the meals.
And here is the first picture I took of the straw house. When it is done, it will be quite a house! I didn't know anything about straw houses when I arrived, but as the days grew into weeks and Sandrine came back from Paris, she brought a couple of books in English on straw house contruction from her house in Castillon. The movement back to using this old type of medieval construction actually started in the U.S. and I found pictures and descriptions of a couple of houses in Massachusetts as well as some in Connecticut and of course many in our southwest.
The little caravan in the background became my home for the next 3 weeks. In many ways it was an ideal little place. I had the only phone on the property. That was great as I could phone home for free later in the evening when everyone else had gone to bed. Two out of the three hosts at the places I did Wwoofing (as well as my apartment in Paris) had a phone service which allows them to phone the U.S. and other countries for a basic monthly rate. Quite often when there are storms, the wifi systems are disturbed, especially in mountain areas - no phone, no internet. Once while I was at Pierlo's, someone stole 40 meters of cable and the phone and internet was out for a few days. Speculation was that either someone wanted to use the cable in his/her own house or perhaps wanted to cash in on the copper which can bring a good price.
In this little caravan, I actually I had my own dry toilet "installed."
The other Wwoofers had their own straw house which was cooler than the caravan. They also had the "advantage" of a built-in alarmclock set to ring in the middle of the night. The smaller rooster doesn't get along with the other cock (actually the other one is bigger and lords it over his rival). They both service the 12 or so chickens who will eventually produce enough eggs for the family. Cock # 2 sleeps on the "first floor" of the small straw house that is home to the Wwoofers who sleep on a couple of large matresses.
In this picture you can also see a "potential" swing set which is just being built. As I matter of fact, one of our "gang" of Wwoofers would, at a future time, help add the swings as part of his work contribution.
This is a picture of a "future" greenhouse, one which I would work in toward the end of my stay. In some of these pictures there is sun, but in others, depending on which side of the house, it is beginning to get dark. While we were there, it was still pretty light in this area well after 10:00.
This is the present entrance to the house where most of the tools were at the beginning of my stay (more later on this).
Here Pierlo and Jules are continuing work on dinner. The present kitchen has limited equipment and only cold water. But this will change soon as the family is planning to move into the house sometime in August. The house has been more than three years in the building. In fact, there was a problem with the first iteration and Pierlo knocked down part of the first structure. He has a great deal of courage to go on building after some pretty big setbacks. Near the beginning of my stay he confided that when he gets discouraged, his Wwoofers come with enthusiasm to help him to keep going and when the Wwoofers are discouraged, he leads them to persist in the work.
Below Ana, a student in pre-med at Ann Arbor Michigan, has just set the table for dinner. I say table, but the tables are made of wooden spools and plywood from the website. You can also see the bales of hay behind the table. This is also the first of many pictures of Marion, 12, who is also a strong and responsible pre-teen. Both children often help with the work on the house. The evening meal is often not until 9:00 at night and is often soup made from one of the many delicious wild herbs (nettle soup anyone?) There is a delicious wild spinach that grows on the property in abundance (aided by the family as they save the seed and resow for the next year). It is quite time consuming to pick but tastes much better than the more bitter genetically modified "cultivated" spinach.
Below is head honcho ruster.
On the left of the picture there is a cement mixer used to mix the material that will be used in making the outside as well as the inner walls of the house. But, more about this later.
Just under the stairs leading to the first floor is a large pile of lumber still needed for the house.
Here it looks like Pierlo might have a rest on the terrace - but no, it is only to show us new Wwoofers where he sometimes sits for a short time to read on Sundays. Usually there is no work on Saturdays or Sundays - more also on that later. There are two very comfortable ratan chairs that Wwoofers sometimes use in the evening to write in their journals or to enjoy one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen.
This first evening you can see the mist descending as night begins to fall.
This view shows the cow farm in the valley below. During the day and especially at milking time in the morning and evening, one hears the ringing of the cowbells. There are also lots of birds of prey and occasionally the crowing of the roosters or the braying to the two donkeys next door. Otherwise, silence. I never once used my earplugs while I was here.
In this picture you can also see the vegetable garden. While I was there there was so much work on the other straw house that this garden was pretty neglected although not entirely. You will see more of the work we did there later. We ofen ate lettuce, squash, French beans, and onions. Later on in the summer there would be other vegetables, although the chickens were constantly getting into to sample the beautiful tomatoes that would be just about ready to pick. I'm not sure what solution will be invented to solve that one!
There is also a wooden container where all the weeds are kept. I think that squash is encouraged to grow in more than one of these.
The next picture shows how buckets of the straw mixture will be hauled up to the second floor.
In succeeding days, we would also fill the walls with a different mixture of straw.
Looking out of the back window onto the future greenhouse. The rooms upstairs are filled with tools and other materials although there was room for a couple of Wwoofers who either found it too hot in the caravan or stayed there when former Wwoofers dropped in to help for a few days. It seems that so far over 200 Wwoofers have worked on this site!
Here from the second floor you can also see the toilet and the rustic shower.
Tomorrow is Sunday so we have a day to enjoy the view before we start work!
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