Organic cheese made in Evran

La Ferme des Aulnays in Evran (Brittany France) has 45 Jersey cows, producing 150 000 litres of organic milk per year.

Jérôme and Annie make 2 types of cheeses :

The ‘Camembert’ and the ‘Jersy’, both cheeses have received an award.

To find out more about the farm, please visit this site here.

The cheeses can be bought from the farm in Evran (mornings), from local organic shops or from Evran market the 2nd Saturday of each month.

Emptying a septic tank

Not a great subject but something we must do when we live in the countryside in Brittany and other remote parts of  France!

Every 5 years it is advisable to have your septic tank emptied. It is now regulated so you can’t ask the local farmer to come and do it for you. You must use a registered company and the sewage gets sent to be recycled ‘properly’ rather than being spread on nearby fields.

The company will come and empty the septic tank, clean the tank and fill it again with water.

The price depends on the size of the tank. Expect to pay around 200 euros.

Farmers having fun!

Farmers in Brittany love making things with bales of hay in August! See this photo I took around Dinan.
They make you smile when you pass them for a couple of months!

Missing our little chickens!

For the first time in years I had to buy some Free range eggs at Dinan market this morning. We have been keeping chickens since we moved to Brittany in 2003 but they got old and feeding 5 chickens and having 1 egg a week was not ideal!

We had to get rid of them before Christmas. They were ‘donated’ to our neighbour who offered to neck them, cook them in a big pan on his outdoor gas cooker and feed the chicken to his...... dog.

Nothing gets wasted in the countryside in France!

We will get more chickens in spring, when the weather is better.

In the meantime, I will carry on buying eggs from our local farmers.

Unhappy Breton pig farmers

At the moment, pig farmers (éleveurs de porcs) only get €1.30 per kilo of meat. The price is at rock bottom and farmers are furious.

Yesterday, sixty unhappy pig farmers visited 4 supermarkets in and around St Brieuc in Brittany and took off the shelves all products (pre-packed ham, patés, sausages, etc) that didn’t have the mention « Viande de Porc Française » or « Origine France ».

Pig farmers have been asking supermarkets to promote French pigs and they have not kept their promises.

Looking at the photos of OuestFrance (see link here), there were not a lot of items left on the shelves!!

Hopefully local supermarkets will change their attitude as we know how bad French strikes can be!