Jill's farm

Nate and Jill
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We arrived in Joigny and frantically packed our stuff and got the bike off the train. Jill was waiting for us and we traded hellos. Nate took the opportunity to ride the first 8 miles on Pearl to Villiers sur Tholon, Jill's home village, and she and I traded more in-depth introductions as we rode in her small French truck. Jill came to France 37 years ago in search of a farmer, her husband Bernard, and a sustainable life with children, 6 in fact.

The house was lived in and in constant need of some sort of repair. The shower is currently used to dry dishes and the only flushing toilet is in the "kids" house next door, there are many broken windows and doors that lay on the border of functional, and a roof that needs patching. It is a lot of work merely maintaining the hundred-year-old property. Jill's sons Leo 23 and Luke 30 return home for a few months out of the year to help on the estate and touch base with family.

(from left) Luke, Nate, Alex and Leo
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Soon after arrival I began shadowing Jill in her everyday chores - feeding and milking the cows, feeding the pigs, fixing dinner, gathering eggs and many unseen tasks throughout the home. Jill hand milks her cows and makes and sells her own butter. "We live the way people did 60 years ago" she said as she was teaching me to milk her cow Leela. Dinner was amazing; we had potato-leek soup, fresh bread, salad with fresh apples and fresh walnuts, an abundance of cheese and homemade wine from Bernard's cellar. A full table sat around the table for food and good conversation. This was my first experience being immersed in French and I loved it, such a beautiful language. Every once in a while Luke would translate a story for Nate and me, it made me want to learn the language and participate in this wonderful lifestyle. The entire house was very supportive of my growing language skills; Jill told me that it took her a short 3 months to pick up the conversational basics and to just keep trying. I did, and left 6 days after arrival with some solid vocab and a better understanding of the structure of the language itself. After dinner Nate Jill and I had an inspiring and heated discussion about sustainability, global warming, politics and the future as we know it. Jill shares many of my ideals and it was a relief to get a more mature perspective on how to live well. Nate and I ventured to the "kid" house where Luke and his friends were playing music. We talked with Leo about traveling and life in general, it was a short conversation due to the fact that Leo didn't speak much English and we spoke virtually no French.

Joelle and Jill making pate while Louise and Mylise help me make cookies
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The next morning after a good cup of coffee and some breakfast Nate and I took turns milking Leela. Back at the house we were given the task of peeling and chopping fresh apples for the evenings dinner of boullin (blood sausage), mashed potatoes and applesauce. Later in the day Bernard's niece Joelle and her husband Vincent were going to come over to help with the butchering of the season's second hog. The entire weekend had been set aside for the butchering process of the killing, sausage making and continuing with meat fabrication and pate making. I made sure to participate as much as possible and learn about the process with a side bonus of an anatomy lesson in French. The dinner table was full with an extra 5 members at the table, all hungry in anticipation of fresh pork products. We sat around the table enjoying the meal, the company and the pace of life. After dinner Luke invited us to the local bar a couple villages away to listen to Leo play his washtub base. Obviously foreign and not understanding the language, Nate and I sat in a comfortable corner relaxing and listening to good Jazz music. We got home around 1:30 and Nate decided to sleep in the next morning.

Kitchen corner
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I woke at 8 and enjoyed a leisurely breakfast before accompanying Jill to the cows. After our return I retreated to the chopping block to watch Vincent divide the muscles into different pieces of meat. I was recruited to clean a freezer and finished just in time for lunch. The remainder of the day was spent checking out the lay of the land and making myself useful where needed. Another amazing evening of great food and music to fill our souls awaited us. Nate and I sat and listened while repairing some of the holes in his clothes in anticipation of his continued travels as Luke and Alex, Leo's girlfriend, went to the bar for continued festivities.

The backdoor, straight shot to the kitchen
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I fell into the habit of sharing my morning with Jill; it was a revitalizing way to begin a new day. We shared amazing conversation that continues to get me thinking about how I want to live my life. After the morning chores we set right into making saucisson a l'ail, garlic sausage. Joelle, Jill and I spent the majority of the day cutting and grinding meat and then pressing it into intestines for cooking. After finishing the sausages I wandered to Luke's where Alex was making crepes. I gave it a shot and was quickly impressed by her skill; I was not nearly as successful and passed the spatula back to the crepe queen. We ate crepe du fromage, jamon et oeuf with dessert of crepe flambe thanks to Leo.

the chopping block
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Leo and Alex were put in charge of Leela and were not in need of an extra set of hands so Monday morning we slept in. Luke woke us around 9 and we got straight to work cleaning out the pigpen for the arriving piglets later that day. It was an upper body work out flinging all that manure onto a trailer. Luke took us on a genuine French tractor ride and Nate and I flung the mess into a compost pile. After a wonderful lunch of endive salad and casserole Nate started packing for his departure Tuesday morning. I tried my hand at clearing brush and found myself playing with a big fire. Before dinner Jill took me to the small library where she volunteers twice a week. It was only two rooms big and in the hour we were there nobody came to get a book even though there are a group of regulars that live in the community. After dinner were more amazing conversation and music of course.

Pooper scooper extrodinare
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The morning brought something that I had been dreading for a while. As Nate wobbled away on his fully loaded bike I felt the bite of envy, I already missed the life of a traveler and had a big journey myself to look to. I spent the day helping Jill make the days meals and playing with brush fire under Luke's supervision.

Wednesday morning I got up early and was robbed of my new routine. Luke drove me to the train station and I started my big leap to the states. Throughout the day of traveling I was pointed towards the 'foreigner' line and spoken to in fluent French. My adventures landed me in Iceland for a few hours, just long enough to desire to stay longer. I landed in Washington D.C. at 2am French time, where my Aunt met me and took me back to her urban holding cell. Quite a lot of changes in just two days time. Already I wanted to return to Villiers sur Tholon and Jill's kitchen.