Shefer Family

  • Happy New Year from all the Shefer’s and Sterns. We are so grateful for our first full year here! Love, peace and blessings to all.

  • Our shipment of light fittings finally arrived today. It took 2 years of design, manufacturing and shipping, but we now have a front hall full of crates! As we unpack and build them we will keep you posted.

  • Two down, thirty-five to go. 😆 This might take a while.

  • I’m creating a floral frieze around the top of the front hall. It’s based on the decorative design on the front of the Vienna succession building. An art nouveau masterpiece, that I have long admired. This is just the first step. Later it will be bigger of course, painted and gilded.

  • We planted, what will eventually become a willow tunnel. It’s in the soggiest corner of the garden, below the big pond. In this area a fresh hole will fill completely with water in minutes. Hopefully the willows will dry the ground a little.

  • A trip to Mimizan Plage.

  • Morning mists.

  • A pretty evening sky.

  • Flu season is upon us, so I’m making chicken soup and warm fires.

  • A little more ice.

  • First frost of the season. ✨ Just a little, but it is supposed to get colder over the next few days.

  • So proud of our new pantry shelves!

  • Putting up new pantry shelves! So needed!

  • Beauty everywhere

  • I think that I would like to make some Green tomato chutney.

  • We have lost three great old oaks in the forest in the last storm, (they were like dominoes- one took out another and that smashed the third as it came down across a little valley). Also the fire salamanders are out in force, and the fall color is coming.

  • Sloe gin recipe

    1 liter bottle - wide mouth 350g of sloes
    1 bottle of gin - 700 100g of sugar 50g - up to 100g of sugar (3 months later )

    Steps:

    Freeze sloes overnight Add to bottle Add him Add 50g of sugar Seal and store for 3 months Turning bottles regularly to dissolve sugar

    After 3 months if resulting liquid is dark and rich in flavor, (if not rich and dark, leave for another 2-3 months), remove sloes and add 50g - 100g more sugar. (Quantity depends on taste preference and sugar content of the berries).

    Leave for minimum of 6 months. It improves over time so is noticeable better after a year or 2. ( heavenly after 4 years). Best served chilled in champagne cocktail.

  • Our burn pile is huge. We have been waiting for that perfect weather to pull the trigger on this one: wet ground, no wind, not raining and not too hot, with rain expected soon. Today is the day!

  • Olive picking day!

  • Another visit to Abbey Flarran.

  • Boat gardening! 😆 This is how you weed the interior walls of a stone lined pond.

  • The Ordan Larroque flower faire. It’s just one day per year, but it’s a date to not miss.

  • Hunting for pipes by the swimming pool, so we can move the pools technical room out of the orangery. Dowsing has produced the best results so far. 😆

  • We lost a tree in the June storm, but gained a new view of the Colombage.

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