My Adventures

For those who are paying attention to the titles of each post, I must apologize for the last one. I was brainstorming and wrote my thoughts in the title space and completely forgot! I'll call it creative thinking, publicly displayed.

Yesterday, for lunch we had saucisson(sausage), crab sticks(looks like muenster cheese sticks), and tomatoes. We then had steak, potatoes, and vegetables. Any pork or beef products come from the farm's raised animals. The owners do not do the slaughtering or butchering here though; someone picks the animals up instead. After lunch, we had cheese with bread and then ice cream!! Veronique asked if I wanted glace(ice cream). Sometimes I ask that a sentence be repeated because I don't understand or hear. This time I asked for repetition three times to make sure I wasn't going crazy and that maybe she was talking about a mirror(also glace in french). We each had our own delicious bowl of vanilla and orange/strawberry ice cream.

After lunch, I was free to wander. So I set off for a bike ride, which lasted at least 40 minutes. I didn't get lost at all - I was amazed since I'm terrible with directions! All of the houses were beautiful; the countryside is beautiful - absolutely gorgeous. Upon my return, I laid out on the front yard, in a semi secluded spot to read. I then took a nap for about an hour... It was a great nap, however I woke up to quite an odd sun tan: my face was very very slightly tanner on one side, but my lower back has a 3 inch wide strip of tan skin and then nothing. Around 5, I had cafe with Veronique, Pierrick, Celine, and Brieuc(their son) and was then off to feed the pigs and scoop their poop as well as milk the cows. From my experiences thus far, I much prefer to work with cows than pigs - pigs are really smelly, lack beautiful hides, and act more brutal than the cows. The only set back is that cow poop is much much worse/messy than pig poop. (Okay, enough about the poop...)

 If you look hard enough, you can see a house on this mini island

Pierrick and Veronique!

Later on, I milked the cows and then drove around in the tractor with Brieuc to fertilize the fields. When dinner rolled around, we had the habitual, yet delicious, pumpkin and potato soup and then artichokes! The farmers grow wheat, peas, barley, and artichokes, enabling them to eat as may artichokes as desired. Since I have never eaten a whole artichoke nor cooked one, several others may say the same. All you must do is boil artichokes (in water) for an hour, allow them to cool, and then pick them apart and eat the bottom of the "leaves", dipped in a vinaigrette. Once all the leaves are gone, you eat the center, AFTER detaching the inedible parts. It was a very interesting and delicious experience. Finally, we left for the beach(~9:30pm). [By the way, the sun sets around 10pm here!] We visited 4 areas - 3 beaches and one boat harbor. Words cannot describe what I smelled, heard, or saw. La mer(the ocean) had been calling my name and I was finally able to respond. We came back around 11:00, went to bed, and woke up to milk the cows. Since it's the weekend, Veronique told me that they work less so here I am laying down, ready to take a nap. We may go to la Boulangerie(bakery), l'Epicerie(grocery story), and a friend's farm(with tomatoes and strawberries). Sorry for so many posts, but there is so much to say... I want to remember every bit of this experience<3