Cocorico

Caught in mid-crow. Finer plumage in large.

It was the annual open farm day in the Val de Dagne today. We'd got the leaflet and decided what farms to visit, planning a route to avoid the road closure in Montlaur. Off we set, realising on the way to our first stop that I'd left the leaflet with the map on the table. On arrival we also realised we'd forgotten to put the coolbox in the boot for any purchases. All was not lost though because there was one of those plastic frozen food bags on the back seat.

At the buffalo farm we ate some buffalo milk ice cream but there wasn't much else to do, so we were away to our next stop. De Ferme en Ferme has been going for 27 years now, so we know most of the farms, but this was a relatively new participant. La Boria de Marius is like those toy farms we had as kids -- they have a few of nearly everything. No cows, but horses, donkeys, pigs, sheep, goats, rabbits, chickens, cats and dogs. They had laid on a playground for kids, tables and chairs for picnics. There was a lunch menu of farm products -- which turned out to be oversubscribed, so we settled for pancakes made from their own eggs and goat's milk, and a glass of home-made iced tea. Extras: the pretty horses, and another pet animal to go with yesterday's -- the lamb was obviously bottle-fed as it trotted devotedly after Marius wherever he went. It's hard to see how they can make a living out of such a small-scale diversified farm, but it was lovely to see. And we bought some eggs and organic pork.

On the way back we discovered that the road through Montlaur was not in fact closed, so we hadn't needed to go a long way round. Taking advantage of this we made a third stop in Montlaur, at a wine domaine, where we bought some very fresh and fruity red wine that was a kind of halfway house between rosé and red. Very nice for summer. The lady we normally buy lamb from was there, so it would have been rude not to buy some of that too.

Back home and we more or less flopped for the rest of the day. It's overcast and very humid, but no storm and not likely to be.