I arrived at my first farm in the late afternoon on Monday the 5th June 2023. It was an indecisive day in France, with the weather alternating between humid and bucketing with rain. My host farmer (l’agriculteur) was a rural-looking French man named Marcel, who collected me in an old Renault from the train station at Vierzon. The farm was small but well-equipped for rearing livestock, which was the main purpose of the enterprise. There were about three barns and a couple of old houses for the farmer and his family; his parents lived on the farm also. On arrival, I was greeted by Gershwin, a friendly Colly-cross who I later discovered had fleas (des Puces), and shown into the main house. Another farmer, Marcel’s partner Francoise, was inside and greeted me warmly. At this point, I was using my very limited French to make small talk and show them that I meant no harm, taking comfort in the understanding that Marcel had stated online that both English and French were spoken on the farm.
Shortly after dropping off my bag in a big bedroom, I was asked to come along to the evening feeding of the animals (les bestiaux) to get an idea of what I would be helping with in the coming days. We three, with Gershwin in tow, walked together to one of the barns and entered under an extended roof. An analogue radio perched high by the entrance played classical music which was quickly drowned out by the sound of thirty loud pigs recognising that dinner time had come. (If you haven’t heard a pig scream before, think Nazgûl from the Lord of the Rings. They’re big, too, the adults are easily twice the weight of an adult man). The pigs were housed in six separate pens ranging from the youngest group through to the eldest who would soon be ready for slaughter. Francoise and Marcel got to work clearing out the troughs, filling buckets (les seaux) with a mixture of ground wheat and beans, and dispensing the melange past the waiting snouts and into the troughs. This was followed by buckets of water to wash everything down.
Next the goats. The goats were a calm bunch, clearly excited about dinner but not as inclined to make a scene. Hay (soin) was spread out for them in front of a fence-like structure with space for each goat to insert her head. The type of hay that was given was different according to the time of day, with the least nutritious in the morning and the most nutritious in the evening. As they ate, I helped give bottled cows milk to the youngest goats (les chevreau) who needed extra to support their growth. Meanwhile Marcel had been feeding the cows who now needed to be herded to a small plot next door where they would sleep.
Herding the cows was an event that happened four times a day between three sites. It involved following the cows with small lengths of stiff hosepipe as they walked and whacking them if they slowed or veered off course. The cows seemed perfectly content to just walk slowly to the field, but moving them along was performing art for Marcel. A whirlwind of disappointment, frustration and incomprehension met each cow that didn’t meet the required pace. This was hilarious and slightly disturbing to watch since he seemed genuinely distressed each time.
During the first evening, there happened to be a documentary playing at a nearby cinema about an ongoing (at the time of writing) issue happening in France. A few ‘Mega-bassines’, huge overground reservoirs, had been built in the West of France, and more had been proposed. These were intended to supply water to a small number of large, industrial farms during summer by pumping ground water in the winter when the water table was high. The catch was that these reservoirs disrupted the water supply to smaller farmers and caused widespread damage to ecosystems.
We attended this viewing, after which the makers of the documentary lined up in front of the audience and a debate began with a moderator handing around a microphone. The audience was clearly split with people arguing both sides, but I was struck by how respectful the general tone was despite the disagreement. This continued until we left at midnight.
The next day, after the animals had had their breakfast, I helped Francoise and the butcher in the laboratoire to make sausages and chipolatas from a recently demised pig. This involved mincing up the offcuts then pumping them into a tube of pig intestine. The kit used for this was old and of questionable cleanliness, as were the surfaces, but it was satisfying to finish up for lunch having produced a tangible output.
Lunch in France is a bigger affair than in England, usually consisting of multiple courses; three or four as standard. Generally, you begin with a starter, like bread, then move onto a main, followed by dessert and then a cheese board. Over lunch, I attempted to practice my French by making conversation with my hosts. Increasingly though, it was becoming clear that my hosts spoke no English except for the occasional “take” or “good”, pronounced “tek” and “gooda”. This became even more apparent after I tried to help out with feeding the animals in the evening. The problem was that many different things had to be done and I was being told what to do on the fly in French. This is a pretty high stakes way to learn a language that required lots of gesticulating and which often fails to convey the nuance of “give the goats enough of the truffle infused hay”.
The tension grew over the following days until it began to feel openly hostile. On Thursday I was ill (un nez qui coule) and the washing machine had broken. Marcel floated past my window in a tractor, absentmindedly picking his nose. I made the decision to find somewhere else asap, and sent out several messages to different hosts online. On Friday, I heard back from a couple nearby who needed help with the grounds of a chateau, which sounded perfect. The next day I packed my bags, said a very awkward goodbye to Francoise and hopped on a train to the medieval French town of Chinon, Loire Valley.
