Ali Babas Cave or Pandora's Box

Like a two year old child, everything demands attention at Le Terme. Warmer days work their magical elixir rapidly accelerating spring. The Queen Bee emerging from her regal slumber gets busy populating a new colony. The once quiet bee hives in the old stone farmhouse walls are now buzzing with activity.

Each day a new bud explodes in anticipation of flower or fruit, the majestic Linden and Chestnut tree leaves explode overnight, frogs orchestrate with 3 part harmony in the nearby ponds giving us hope they will be our bug collectors.

Irises, Magnolia Lily, Peonies, Eastern Redbuds, Lilacs and Wild Cherry moved so quickly onto the beauty pageant stage that we could only gasp at their glorious explosion of colors, fragrances and beauty. Each day becomes a race to see what surprise will greet us on our arrival at the property.

In Europe there is a concern about the "Asian hornet" similar to the "Brazilian bee" we have in California. The hornets are known to stay in front of the honey bee hive killing off the proletariat worker bee then moving in to colonize the hive.

We mix a sweet lethal concoction to hang from the trees to catch the bad player.

Basic List

Where do you start on a property that has pretty much been neglected for three years and has over 300 trees, deteriorating roof tiles covered in moss, every room in need of a creature evacuation with subsequent scrub down, damp damage with ivy and brambles overtaking half the back 40, one of the lowest energy ratings in France and wide open possibilities?

You start with the basics.

Elbow Grease

Cleaning with hot water, soap or bleach and the magical elbow grease component.

The house has been a nice haven for mini creatures so I gently urge them to leave the premises. The feta cheese non-kill trap lures the cutest little country mouse in and I fall down Alices' rabbit hole remembering the blog I wrote wondering if I was a city or country mouse. Question settled, country mouse.

Minnie Pearl's look of indignation and little squeaks bring me out of my reverie when she makes it perfectly clear to me that she is a country mouse who lives in a warm house chewing up paper boxes, books and whatever scraps she can find.

Her little straw hat brings out the mice savior in me. We do a catch and release trotting her off to another undisclosed location in the commune hoping she doesn't make the incredible journey back to us. I don't have the heart to end her life.

Landscaper

Since spring is bringing such drastic changes to the vegetation we start with a group haircut. We are happy to find a local artisan of the same tree philosophy as us, Pierre reorganizes our outdoor spaces with the vision, energy and creativity that gives us a lot of assurance that our "little messy heaven on earth" will start to experience a healthy comeback.

Dead acacia trees are felled and turned into a power source for our wood burning stove. Wood needs to be aged so this pile will be stacked and stored for several years to dry and age.

Equipment

Battling bramble and ivy becomes a daily routine as they strangle and overtake every leafy species we discover. Investing in long boots, long gloves, work pants, great garden trimmers and a wheelbarrow (brouette) I go forth into battle.

I learn that a wheelbarrow also serves as an instant chair. I also learn that some of the ivy is holding some stone walls together. The brambles hold the bigger challenge as there isn’t a hazmat suit they can’t pierce. I fight the good fight and slowly win the War of the Roses.

Getting a tetanus shot made sense with all the gardening, tools and soil we are working with and another learning is that people can contract tetanus from rose thorns.

Pierre the landscaper arrives with his weapons of war and armor to tame the wild things. “Let the wild rumpus start”!  Dead acacia trees, overgrown bushes, broken trees and branches, creepers grown into the roof tile.

8 weeks into it we start to make some progress that only we can see. Even with Pierre we would still need 4 more of us to make a dent.

We grind up trees and vegetation in Fargo fashion spreading sawdust for undercover and compost in areas.  Footprints of the property emerge, haircuts looks good and a healthier reveal shows up as the individual members of the community start to emerge and shine.

Youssef and Gardener-Pierre

Junk pickup and hauling

The owners left most everything in all 5 buildings, because their already full apartment in Marseille didn’t need Le Terme’s treasures.

Pandora's Box or Ali Baba's Cave became the game de jour each time we opened a door, cabinet, box or armoire.

We needed to call in the junk collector to take away the contents of Pandora's Box.

"A penny a pound" was the going rate for the junk collector, I remember as a child, who stopped by occasionally on our farm to collect all the scrap metal pieces we offered him.

David Renard, our junkman, took two loads of Pandora's Box away - old freezers, refrigerators, file cabinets, albums, bits and pieces of junk and wiring, boatloads of stuff. Even with his name Renard = Fox, his honesty and hard work showed him to be a simple man just trying to make a living.

Getting basics working

Plumbing

The toilets weren't hooked up to the septic tank until recently and the heater wasn’t working so Candau the plumber to the rescue. Since we aren’t living in the house yet we weren’t as concerned with basics, now that we are here most days, it is a nice luxury. Hot water and toilets.

Fuel

Our goal is to upgrade our energy and power sources but in the meantime we are going with what already exists. We order fuel to warm the radiators.

Wood and Stone

Wilma Flintstone's Kitchen

A cooktop used in the farmhouse would include the fireplace to cook but also a ember stove. Hot embers are laid on the cooking grill with a cooking dish on top. The hot cinders drop into the shelf below.

Our home is built from wood, tile and stone. There are stone sinks, stone fireplaces, stone walls, stone roof tiles and stone floor tiles, wood ceiling beams, wood staircases and also wood floors.  We want to retain a lot of the original features and nudge the house closer to the 21st century.  The stove above is a nice reminder of the old days.

Stone requires special care, like people and animals, it doesn’t like to be abandoned.  It needs air, open windows and doors or it starts to get moldy. We feel like we are in intervention mode resuscitating our home as we remove the damage done.

Kitchen sink, bathroom sink and original farmhouse wall sink

Unusual and fun items found in Ali Baba's cave

Cooking vessels, tin buckets, pitchers and kettles.

Meanwhile back at our gîte - Houdini Horse Adventure

The stallion climbed through the fence because the grass was greener on the other side. Tiring of hay and hankering for grass he found a way out. The owners were not at home so I did what any farm girl would do, I grabbed a bucket of grain, a halter and put him back in the barn. Next day he found a new way out...

Tarbes Agricultural Fair

Oh the fun of visiting the agricultural fair and seeing the animals and friends.

Mysteries from Ali’s cave

Scratching my head at this discovery, I wondered what could it be?

It's a lessiveuse or a washer with a mushroom spigot. It was developed in1870 to wash clothes but didn't reach the countryside until 1900 and was still in use in rural areas well into mid 1900's.

To boil is to disinfect became the message as hygiene became a concern in France. During this period Pasteur researched infectious diseases, Koch researched Tuberculosis and Victor Hugo crusaded for better sanitation portraying the suffering of the miserable in slums in his epic novel Les Misérables.

Wood ash wrapped tight in a fabric bag was placed on the bottom of the lessiveuse, the clothes were added layer by layer below the spout, it was then set on the stove. The boiling water made it rise through the injector tube with the bleach that was produced from the ash and clothes were sanitized. After1.5 to 3 hours the clothes were sanitized and carefully removed with a stick to avoid burns.

Let’s take a moment to thank our washing machines.