{"id":154,"date":"2024-10-21T09:47:07","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T09:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/?p=154"},"modified":"2024-10-21T09:47:07","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T09:47:07","slug":"work-on-the-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/work-on-the-land\/","title":{"rendered":"Work on the land"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

P<\/span>ressed<\/span> by<\/span> me,<\/span> Mme<\/span> El,<\/span> who<\/span> frequently<\/span> professes <\/span>laziness of body and mind, tried to protest against <\/span>close questioning, but then dived into the depths of her <\/span>memory, revealing further details about her occupations as <\/span>a \u2018paysanne\u2019, a country-woman on her farm, her activities in <\/span>field and garden. Helping her husband, she calls it : driving <\/span>one of their tractors, some ploughing, loading the trailer with <\/span>fodder like hay, lucerne, wheat or barley straw, unloading this <\/span>at home, in bales or loose, lifting it into the loft above the <\/span>stable! the weight of it! One\u2019s arms! The trusty old ladder<\/span>
made by her carpenter brother-in-law, still existing and in <\/span>good condition, she told me to try it, and its maker gone a <\/span>long time ago, neatly piling it up for maximum storage.<\/span>
All the work in the stable, the milking done by the <\/span>men, but the rest of it, the cleaning up, certainly she helped <\/span>with that, heavy wheelbarrow-loads of stuff, but then she was <\/span>young and full of energy, on the short side and solid like her <\/span>father, both feet firmly on the ground. Then there was the <\/span>fowl: chickens, ducks and geese freely roaming all over the <\/span>farm-yard \u2013 the dirt everywhere! Hopeless to try and keep <\/span>the kitchen-floor clean, who would change their shoes every <\/span>time before entering the house??? \u2013 And offspring of all ages <\/span>in all corners, I marvelled at such a fertility which came to an <\/span>end when more \u2018civilized\u2019 conditions were put in place. In the <\/span>meantime, not to forget pigs and hunting dogs who needed <\/span>feeding, Mme El\u2019s job.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the garden they grew cabbages for the daily soup, but <\/span>not cauliflower, she explained, because they all come up <\/span>simultaneously and who wants to eat that all the time?! she <\/span>preferred to buy one when she felt like it. There were also <\/span>leeks which grew to a good size, but not carrots, too difficult, <\/span>they just wouldn\u2019t come. I told her that they won\u2019t come for <\/span>us, either, nor for the neighbour across the road who keeps <\/span>on trying and for once had an excellent result last year, a one-<\/span>off, he reckons, a bachelor of our age recently with a lady-<\/span>friend. Tomatoes grew well and \u2018aubergines\u2019 and \u2018courgettes\u2019, <\/span>but she never made ratatouille like her daughter-in-law <\/span>L\u00e9onine, she kept the vegetables separate: tomatoes as a <\/span>salad, if they weren\u2019t converted into \u2018sauce tomate\u2019 for the <\/span>winter, \u2018aubergines\u2019 sliced and fried, \u2018courgettes\u2019 she doesn\u2019t <\/span>remember how. The salad she liked with onion and olives, like <\/span>L\u00e9onine and unlike the men. They grew their own potatoes, <\/span>needless to say. The garden, I hear, was mainly her husband\u2019s <\/span>domain, but she kept it tidy and was dismayed to see it untidy <\/span>when their strength began to fail them.<\/span>
\u2018And all this, a thing of the past!\u2019 she concluded, waving her <\/span>hands, powerless. \u2018Es atal\u2019, it is like that. And that was that.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pressed by me, Mme El, who frequently professes laziness of body and mind, tried to protest against close questioning, but then dived into the depths of her memory, revealing further details about her occupations as a \u2018paysanne\u2019, a country-woman on her farm, her activities in field and garden. Helping her husband, she calls it : […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":155,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154\/revisions\/155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}