I sprinkled a dessert spoonful of sunflower seeds on the tuna salad for lunch yesterday without immediately making the connection with what is happening in the fields around us.

Toasted sunflower seeds

Giant harvesters are scything the blackened flower faces and spewing the processed seeds into large rectangular skips.

It has been an exceptional year for sunflowers. Great painterly swathes of yellow covered the countryside for weeks before succumbing to the heat of the sun and bowing their heads in submission.

Their span has always suggested soldiers to me–from green recruits through seasoned professionals to weary veterans–a life in the field.

Witnessing this pattern repeat itself each year is one of the many pleasures this old townie looks forward to, living as we do, en plain campagne [in the heart of the countryside].

The thrilling cycle continues–the ever-changing face of the countryside ’round here.

Now’s the time to “plough the fields and scatter”–a hymnal phrase from my childhood. Never much thought about at the time, but now it’s happening outside my front door.

Never too late to learn.

Also, a scene in an early episode of POLDARK episode comes to mind.

Exactly what I was doing on a cold autumn day 40 years ago with Jud (Paul Curran ) by my side.

Too chilly for baring the chest 😉 !

Field-to-table–a connection not always made by city-dwellers.

No sooner has the seed spewer done its job than a smaller niftier tractor with plough attached behind starts in to turnover the stumps and transform the field into a plantable plot again.

Garlic this time around perhaps; l’Ail Rose de Lautrec (our very own pink garlic).

Lightly toasting the sunflower seeds over a lowish heat makes them even more delicious–but keep an eye on them, or they’ll quickly burn.

From my third cookbook, Mediterranean Cooking for Diabetics

Tuna Salad

A handy, quick standby, when you feel at a loss for something to serve for a light lunch. 

for 4

2 tbsps dijon mustard

4 tbsps tarragon vinegar

300 ml olive oil

4 tbsps plain yoghurt, drained through a sieve (to thicken it a little, and extract the liquid)

2 tbsps parsley–chopped fine

2 tbsps chives–chopped fine

2 tbsps chervil–chopped fine (optional–a plus, if you can find it!)

Salt & Pepper to taste

1/2 a cucumber–peeled, quartered, deseeded, and chopped fine

2 spring onions– cleaned and chopped fine

1 tbsp  sunflower seeds– lightly toasted in a dry frying pan

2  200gms/7oz tins/cans of tuna–drained and flaked (I like it best when packaged in olive oil.)

a little extra parsley– chopped fine

1. Place the tuna in a favourite serving bowl;

2. Whisk the first eight ingredients together into a thick sauce;

3. Add the cucumber, onions and seeds;

4. Pour the sauce over the tuna;

5. Mix carefully;

6. Sprinkle over the remaining parsley;

7. Serve with a crisp, green lettuce. 

I often serve them on “little gem lettuce” which serves as “boats” for the cargo–and in this case, with hardboiled eggs.

Spot Lucette in the corner, ever hopeful..!

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It’s nearly nine in the morning; Lucette and Maud are up and ready to face the day, but seem in no hurry–content to scuffle around, chatting to themselves, making the usual plans.

They have passed the night in their little house nestling in the coop between buttresses on the northwest side of the church.

Our friend Thomas built the coop while the little split-level house inside was a gift from our friends Flo and Thierry. (Foxes, weasels and buzzards are a threat!)

Lucette has the upstairs, Maud the ground floor.

Maud hesitates as I open up and waits for Lucette to descend to ground level before shooting through the opening to the day beyond. Lucette follows at a more measured pace.

She is the larger of the two and usually leads the dance, with Maud content to follow in her wake.

Our pair of chickens, each with her own likes and quirks, ways and daily rounds, begin another day, mirroring all the days that have gone before, since the odd couple arrived here about one year ago. They are creatures of habit.

I secure the doors and watch two bobbing feathered behinds pecking their way up the path, past the tomato patch.

The pecking order operates only by virtue of Lucette’s longer legs; Maud, if it really matters to her, will put in a spurt of her short-legged bobbing waddle to outpace Lucette to that tasty morsel.

The odd two were three; but one day, when I went to close up in the evening I found a flat pancake of feathers near the door to the pen.

Poor Amber had hit red–she was dead.

No sign of an attack or any aggression, simply the image of a life departed. The end.

It was distressing–but also a relief that it appeared to have been natural and peaceful.

The magnificent Amber

The three hens came from a life in Montpellier on the Med, to the southwest of us.

They are breeds called Negra Soi or Silkies (Maud) and Araucana (Lucette).

Lucette, the larger one, is supposed to lay beautiful blue eggs.

In her time here, she has produced only ONE, small egg–albeit BLUE!
I made the smallest omelet in the world which Meredith and I shared.

Eggs are not the reason we delight in our odd couple. It’s simply THEM and their ways.
Lucette is always on the lookout for handouts–tilting her head coyly as she catches my eye.

“I’m here…”

She’ll take advantage of an open front door, nipping in to sample the cat food, which she relishes, and knows is often leftover–no flies on Lucette.
Graciously she shows her appreciation by leaving evidence of the visit.

“OOMPH!–delicious thanks so much.”

She is the more companionable of the two, often just hanging out with us.
Maud keeps her counsel, content to peck her way to a full stomach in the courtyard.
They usually siesta together under the old henhouse–hens with a sense of the past.

It’s perfect shade, and a place of safety from circling hawks and buzzards.

The cats keep a wary distance and are no threat to Lucette and Maud, who early on made it clear–with a fluttering of wings–that they would take no messing.

Ben–on higher ground–keeps a wary eye

None of the six cats have ever shown any inclination to “mess“.

At dusk, they retrace their steps and head for the tomato patch where they have a soft earth bath in a favourite place, nicely warmed by the afternoon sun.

“Lovely”

Then, in a leisurely fashion…

“No sense in rushing, you understand, being hens of the south….”

…they head for home, and after a little desultory pecking, turn in.

Lucette upstairs and Maud downstairs.

Another day well spent!

What a life!

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