Birthday Mauling

This last week was my birthday.  And all in all it was a pretty good day; yoga, flowers, chocolates, shopping, lunch with the family, until we got home.  As the girls often do when we get home, they ran to the chicken coop to let the hens out to stretch their legs until night-fall would call them back to the coop.  They quickly ran back to us hysterical and in tears.  The chickens were already out of their coop and apparently the coop looked like it had been “attacked”.  Marc and I headed over to what honestly looked like a mauling:

Let me back up a minute to give you some back-story.  We’ve had the chickens now for a little over a month.  They’ve been really fun and quite delightful; in addition to providing us with amazingly delicious eggs.  I think we’ve all been surprised to discover how attached we’ve become to the chickens.  At this point they definitely feel like pets to us and we’re getting to know each of their personalities a little better and YES we can tell them apart.  :)

Reese is the most outgoing of the bunch and whenever she sees us she literally runs over; hoping there might be some food.

Sadie initially seemed to be the mother hen.  

She's very sweet and a bit better behaved than the other two.  ;)

Zoe has probably changed the most over the course of the month.  She started out as being shy and a follower of the other two.  And now she’s clearly the leader of the group and I’ve even caught her being a bit of a bully, especially to Sadie.  Pecking her to move over or taking her spot where she was comfortably lounging in the sun.  Chicken psychology…..who knew!

A couple weeks in, Reese and Zoe were getting into all kinds of mischief.  When we’re home during the day we try to let the chickens out so they can roam and forage.  Unfortunately though our yard is not completely fenced in so they do end up wandering a bit; never too far though. 

One day I was working outside a bit and had left the kitchen door open.  When I came back in I found the two of them perched under the table and not anxious to leave the house.  Another day Reese and Zoe literally disappeared for half the day.  We searched all over and they were nowhere to be found.  It was almost time to pick the girls up from school and I was getting ready to have to tell them that the chickens had disappeared when I decided I better go look one more time.  I walked up the driveway to the main street that leads to our house just in case they had wandered that far and sure enough, there they were walking up the street back to the house!!  Where in the world had they gone?  They sauntered past me and back to the yard completely oblivious to the fact that I had just stressed out for half the day imagining all the worse possible scenarios of what could have happened to them.

But the innocent mischief started to get worrisome a week ago when Marc found Reese looking rather frazzled and stressed in the neighbor’s open yard along with a bunch of feathers on the lawn.  He couldn’t find the other two!!  Again, around the time to pick the girls up from school the other two suddenly appeared in the yard; seemingly okay.  We couldn’t figure out what had happened until three days later when I was just getting up from the table to start on lunch and happened to look out the front window to see the neighbor dog, in the other neighbor’s yard, tossing one of the chickens up into the air!!  I quickly ran over and rescued Sadie who visibly seemed okay albeit with some feathers missing and a look of stress in her eyes.  Marc grabbed Luna and took her back to her house.

Luna’s house shares a fence with ours and apparently she found 2 holes in the fence where she could leave her yard and get into ours.  Pre-chickens this had been fine.  She’s a sweet and playful dog who loved to come over and play with the girls.  Post-chickens however her playfulness is clearly a problem with the chickens.  It didn’t seem like she wanted to hurt or eat them.  I think she just wanted to play but clearly it was not mutual.

Marc told her owner what had happened and of course she felt bad but claimed that she had tried to fix the holes and couldn’t get to them through the bushes that had grown around them.  Well so now of course we were on hyper alert whenever the chickens were out.  Two days later was my birthday and since we were gone most of the day we had left the chickens in their coop.  We never imagined they wouldn’t be safe inside their coop.  Clearly we were wrong, as we discovered when we got home and saw the coop in ruins. We have no absolute proof it was Luna but can’t imagine any other animal doing it.  We're pretty convinced that if it had been a fox the chickens would have been dead.

We found Zoe and Sadie pecking around and they amazingly seemed okay but we couldn’t find Reese.  We finally found her under the bushes and she was not budging.  As night was starting to fall I was finally able to coax her out.  From the looks of it she got the brunt of the attack.  I’ll save you the visual but let’s just say her backside was in a bad way.  She managed to walk back over to the coop, drank a bunch of water, and made her way into the house for the night with the other two.  It took quite a bit of coaxing as the other two did not want to go back in.  While Marc was fixing the coop fence, Zoe actually flew up on top of the coop and wanted to stay there.

It’s been four days since the attack.  Marc found both of the holes that Luna had been escaping through and was able to board them up.  No Luna since and no more attacks since?!?!  The coop is stable but not sure if it’s going to make it through the winter.  Reese is hanging in there, surprisingly.  We did some internet research, “how to care for an injured chicken”.  We did our best to clean her wounds with hydrogen peroxide and separated her from the other two.  We’ve been trying to feed her extra protein and even some garlic to help with healing and lessen the chance of infection.  She’s been sleeping a lot and only eating a little.  It’s still too soon to know if she’ll make it but today there seemed to be a little turn for the better; she ate more and was walking around more with the other two.  A little glimpse of her former self.  Although she still can’t scratch for food, today was the first day she tried to.  We're all hoping she'll pull through.

Holiday Adventures

As I mentioned in the last post, the girls had a holiday from school the last two weeks of October. Although it was definitely nice to have a break it sure did throw off our routine and made for a bit of a rough transition once school resumed again.  But we survived and enjoyed the family time.

Thought I'd share with you some of our day-trip adventures.  Since finances are tight at this point, we do have to make it another 9 months, we decided to stay close to home and explore Haute Savoie a bit.  That's the region of France we are living in.

Annecy
Despite the rain, we enjoyed a day trip to Annecy.  This beautiful town on Lac Annecy is about an hour away from us.  It's known for it's old town charm and winding canals.  I coupled business with pleasure as I had to get a chest x-ray to show that I don't have TB.  This is only one of several other things I've had to do in order for France to honor the Visa that I thought I completed in the US.  Ugh! More on this in a future post.

We had lunch at this sweet, little restaurant right on the canal.  Wood-fired pizza, salad, and....

That's right, Escargots!! (or snails, if you can't tell by the pic)

 

We actually got the girls to try one!!  Lola's stayed in.

Not Teah's though.  She tried a bit and it quickly went back on her plate.

 I just love the canals and that little cutie posing with her lollipop of course.

Mountain Trips
With the base of the Alps literally being only 10 minutes from us we enjoyed several trips in the mountains.  There are three Valleys close to where we live; Valle Verte, Valle Aulps, and Valle Abondance.  We drove all the way through Valle Aulps to the ski resort of Morzine.  We walked through the town, the girls got to ride the merry-go-round, and we enjoyed delicious baguette sandwiches before heading back home.  Marc's brother has a chalet in Morzine that we will be fortunate enough to visit during the winter for skiing so I will definitely speak more on Morzine in future posts.

We also explored Valle Verte a bit and hiked up to the top of Mont Forchat.  The girls actually did it with only minor cheerleading from me along the way.  It was a beautiful view at the top.  We could see the mountain tops and the Lake; a 360 degree view.

When we got back to our car a beautiful, but quite large, mountain cow was waiting for us!  

Thankfully she didn't mind us too much.

Along the route to Morzine is the Abbey in Saint Jean d'Aulps.  They had a monastic market one Sunday afternoon, which we visited.  The Abbey is a former Cisternian Monastery and was founded in the 11th century!! It had a great museum inside chronicling the history of the Abbey and the feuding Lords in the area.  I felt like I was back in Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth (if any of you have read this book or watched the mini-series, you know what I'm talking about).  It was fun to read up on the history a bit.  That is definitely one thing that continually enchants me about France. There is so much history that we just aren't accustomed to living in America.  We forget how young our country really is.

Had a "fun" talk with the girls about corporal punishment for bad behavior.  Ha!

Inside the Abbey's Cave

Abeilles = Bees (in case you couldn't tell by the adorable bee houses behind the sign)

We have a bit of a North Face ad going here.  Ha!

They have a beautiful herb garden.

The ruins of the Abbey.

The Market had an array of local goods but of course we only took a photo of the beers!

Visiting Friends in Geneva
We rounded up our holiday by visiting some long-time friends of Marc's family.  We always make it a point to see them when we come for a visit.  They live just outside of Geneva, so we got to go into Switzerland for the day.  It was a lovely day and we took advantage of the weather by walking around their village.  Geneva is actually surrounded by France.  So part of the hike actually took us to the French border which had a little sign marking it and felt a bit odd to be straddling two countries like that.  The walk also took us right by the CERN particle accelerator (which is underground).  That was also exciting and strange.  If you don't know what CERN is it's the European Organization for Nuclear Research and they operate the largest particle physics laboratory in the world!!

Holding their adorable long-haired Guinea Pig, Crunchy. 

Why walk along the trail when you can run through the vineyards!

We also interspersed our day-trips with some lazy days at home where the girls got to have lots of Barbie and Chicken time.  They're two favorite activities currently.  Not so much the Barbies but the chickens are definitely becoming one of my favorite past-times as well.  They continually delight me. I never realized just how much fun they would be or just how mischievous!  More to come on their shenanigans in a future post.

October Wrap-Up

Another month already behind us.  Hard to believe it's been 2 months since we arrived in France. We're definitely in a good groove now with school and our daily routine.  And of course enjoying our expanding brood of fish and chickens.  :)  Thought I'd share some highlights with all of you of this last month.

We were blessed with a lot more family time and delicious food this month, including Papi's (Marc's dad) 81st birthday and Teah's 6th birthday party.  Here's a photo collage of our month.

The amazing array of French pastries never gets old.

Lola helping Teah with her homework.

 

Sandwich shop.  Have to admit I love these baguette sandwiches.

Skyping with their buddy Reese and doing drawings together over the computer.  Love that!

Cite de l'eau is the closest indoor swimming facility in Publier (20 minute drive).  We finally made it there.  I was really starting to crave a swim.  It felt so good.  Lola and I are actually heading there again this afternoon.

Besides the lap pool and diving well they have a wave pool, 2 hot tubs, and a water park for the little ones.

And a real water slide.  The girls loved that!

Craving burgers one night and found an "American Diner" close by.

I love that they put little American flags on top.  Ha!!

Some pics of the amazing cheese shop (fromagerie) in Thonon that is actually known nation-wide.  Apparently the original owner of this shop used to supply top chefs throughout France with his cheese.  His cheese is special because he uses a special technique to "finish" (age) them for another year or two in his caves, which I guess all fromagerie owners don't do.  This process enhances the flavor and not being an expert myself all I can say is the cheese we bought here was in fact quite delicious!

The fondue we made with the cheese we bought at the above shop.  We have an annual tradition back home to enjoy a New Year's Eve fondue with our neighbors.  It is always quite yummy but admittedly this one was insanely good.  Still, we will miss sharing our tradition this year with our neighbors.

Walk with Ton Ton and cousin Margeaux by the lake.

Skyping with their friend Sadie back home.  They ate some dinner while Sadie was eating breakfast.  

TV time with cousin Mila.

A shot of the sweet trail that follows the lake.  It's a really nice walk and we are fortunate to be able to access it from our house.

More fun with the chickens.

They are some pretty girls if I do say so myself.

Papi's Birthday Party:

Papi with all his granddaughters!

Teah's Birthday Party:

What initially started as just a birthday dinner with the family turned into a party with 5 friends from school, where 4 of them actually stayed for a sleep-over.  I have to admit this was the first time I wasn't frantically trying to pull things together last minute for the party.  Marc basically took over the entire planning and prep. He helped Teah make her invitations, plan the party, and bought all the goodies for the day.  He communicated with all the moms and honestly had to handle most of the communication during the party.  It was by-far the most relaxed I've ever been at one of my children's birthday parties before.  ;)

Showing off her present from her sister and the masks the girls made at her party.

Although not officially a birthday present, the girls were lucky to receive this amazing Barbie house plus a ton of Barbies, clothes, and accessories from a family friend who's daughter is a teenager now.

Marc showing the girls how to make the masks.  It actually kept them engaged for a full hour!

Pizza, pasta, and salad.  The dinner of champions!

Enjoying her birthday cupcakes.

Finished the night with a Barbie movie.  :)

Her second birthday treat!  This was the cake she had picked out for her party but then Ton Ton surprised her with cupcakes from Geneva!

That's right!  Cake #3.  This one from Mamie to follow the dinner I made for the family on Sunday.  I'm telling you, the French take their sweets very seriously!!

Class Field Trip:

Marc joined Lola and Teah's class for a school field trip to a local organic farm and museum.  Of course Marc was the default photographer.  The farm itself was so impressive it deserves it's own post.  I will speak to that again soon. Here are Marc's thoughts of the trip.

The field trip was great, but super cold as the "Bise" (not the kiss from above post, but a super annoying cold wind from the east that is usually pretty strong and always lasts 3-6 or 9 days. Side note here, have you noticed that this word is used for 2 really annoying things, never go eat at a restaurant called La Bise!) was beating on us the whole day, even with with the sun out.

The museum was very interesting and the exposition was about clothing in local villages in 18th and 19th century. I think a lot of the kids were a bit young for this, particularly Teah's class, but she did get a few things out of it. 

What was "fun" was the way the 2 teachers managed their class (25 first graders and 25 second graders) with the help of 5 parents. Lots of yelling would be a good way to sum up the day. I would be lying if I said it didn't bring back some deep emotional trauma that obviously was buried under a pile of more crap - don't worry I won't blog about that. The teachers had a real hard time not yelling from the time we got on the bus to the time we got off. The boys of course took the brunt of that barking, but when at some point in the afternoon I pulled 4 rambunctious boys aside and asked them if they were not tired of being yelled at all day, they looked at me as if I had just asked "so guys, how does it feel to breath air all day?". There was really no good answer, because that's all they knew. This has been one of the most striking differences between my experience with Open classroom back in California where I got to see first hand our teachers managing the kids (which, by the way, can be just as crazy as the french kids) by focusing on their emotional growth, versus the less organic approach these teachers have here. Of course, the subject is complex and I'm probably not being fair in my observation. But I kept thinking about the saying "you catch more bees with honey". 

The last 2 weeks of October the girls had a holiday from school for All Saints Day (Vacance deToussaints). I was going to include the re-cap of our activities here but decided to make it it's own post as there's quite a few pictures to share; so to be continued.