Wildlife Spotting

Today has been a bit of an interesting one for a Monday (as usually nothing happens in France on Mondays). As well as the usual mowing etc., there has been a fair amount of wildlife compared to usual. I fed George and Sandy (our two ducks), then went to ckeck on yesterdays progress on the cherry trees. We had quite a lot of black cherry aphid in the orchard, and I had pruned and squished thousands to help the trees out. Not the most exciting, but it's amazing how many can fit under a cherry leaf. Then I caught a wee snake, about a foot long, and showed it to a couple of our young guests who were actually a bit more interested the games on their i-pads. Lastly, a bunch of bees decided to vacate their hive in the roof of the chateau, where they've been for nearly a year, and set up shop in a tree on the front garden. It was amazing how quickly it happened, and how the bees hang off each other to protect the queen in the middle. I wonder what spooked them?!
And Hobo (the chateau mascot, and menace) was generally making a nuicance of himself by trying to catch the bees flying by his head. Best not to do that or he'd end up with a sore mouth - and we might have had to run away very fast.

Sammy the snake

Sammy trying to make his escape

A pretty impessive make-shift hive about the size fo a large naan bread, and maybe three or four times thicker.

It took about ten or fifteen minutes for the bees to congregate, and five minutes for them to decide to move home again.

And this is Hobo. Or Hoob News as I call him. He wanders about escorting people around the grounds and trying to cause trouble.

He's not amused about something in this photo.

Veg Garden

The lovely Veg Garden

Local Wildlife

Veg Garden From S/E

Young Lettuce

Planting a Few Plum Tomato Plants

One of the Artichoke Plants

The View at the Bottom of the Orchard

Plum, Cherry and Pear orchard

The Back Garden of the Chateau

Intro

If ever there was a time to start a blog about my job it's now. I am currently in my second season working as a groundskeeper at a Chateau in France. I mainly spend most of my time maintaining the gardens and surrounding areas in a blurred version of a nine to five for the boss and gaffer. Other than that I try and stamp my own style to the existing layout in as much as I can without giving myself a hard time from my employers.
I am going to try and make this as interactive as possible with pictures and updates of my daily/weekly work, and if possible show before/after of certain projects. Please if you feel you can contribute with advice or constructive input then I'd be happy to hear it. We have a few experiments going on with trying to make the gardens as sustainable as possible, so with my limited experience in gardening (Im not trained in horticulture, just love being outdoors and especially spending time in the vegetable garden) any observations would be appreciated.
Thanks for reading and lets get gardening!