C’est la moisson…long summer days, balmy nights, and harvesting wheat at the Chateau…
| Saturday, July 25th, 2020
The Chateau de Courtomer park gardens.
Dear Friend,
Lights move back and forth across the fields behind the Chateau until the wee hours of the morning, as huge machines cut and thresh golden sheaves of ripe wheat. They start again at daybreak. All over the vast and fertile plain of Alençon, as in our own fields, the cereal harvest is underway. It’s la moisson, the harvest -- exhausting, worrying, and exhilarating.
“Je vous passe à Jean-Yves ! » snapped Madame Brigitte, when I called the other day. Jean-Yves is her husband and farms our land. I had only wanted to know how the moisson was going. But poor Madame Brigitte…since she tripped and broke her ankle two months ago, she hasn’t put her foot on the ground. This enforced confinement, on top of that imposed by “le virus” is a hardship. And like many hardships, while it builds character, it does not necessarily soften it!
I know well that that Madame Brigitte suffers from being hors de combat. Normally, she would be driving the farm’s camionette out to the fields loaded with provisions and refreshments, conferring with her husband and son, examining the stalks and kernels of wheat, shaking her head at the state of the skies or gleefully anticipating the beau temps, mentally tallying up expected profits or devastating loss.
The lot of a farmer’s wife is not an easy one. It requires gumption, nerves, and tenacity, and Madame Brigitte has all three of these qualities – as well as sharp book-keeping skills.
Jean-Yves gave me the update. The rendement isn’t very good this year, as we had feared. Wet winter, dry spring, coups de fort châleur, scorching hot spells, in June. But, he added, consolingly, “c’est partout le même.” Yes, in France, we’re all suffering the same poor harvest. We both know, however, that what’s bad luck for us is good luck for wheat farmers in the Ukraine, Argentina’s pampas, and the prairies of North America. The price we’ll be paid for our wheat is set by a world market…in which France plays an important part.
Camille Pissarro spent many summers painting in Normandy. "La moisson à la ferme de Monfoucault," 1876, hangs in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.
France is many things -- the birthplace of Coco Chanel, Edith Piaf and Louis XIV; the inventor of the Bic pen, the guillotine and pastel-colored macaroons; the place to see the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa, and the Tour de France. But it is also and foremost a nation of farmers. During le confinement, bars, cafés, restaurants, shops, museums, hotels, and factories all shut down. But no-one thought of stopping farmers from going to work. After tourism, agriculture is king. In fact, the French government timidly suggested that those momentarily out of work ought to go help in the fields. This call to arms and strong backs was the cause of much mirth in our countryside…quoi! les citadins, with their pull-overs tied around their necks and their thin shoes, driving expensive tractors and dealing with horned beasts!
“Adroit comme un boeuf sur un noyer. »
About as handy as a cow in a nut tree.
The rich plains south of Paris and to the west in our Normandy have been famed for agriculture from the beginning of history. The Roman naturalist Pliny reported with admiration on the wheat harvest in the great plains of Roman Gaul, as France was then known. The Gauls had invented harvesting machinery. A horse or an ox pushed a thresher across the fields, “and in a few passes back and forth, in a few hours, the whole field is harvested!”
A frieze from a Roman-era tomb shows how the Gauls harvested wheat.
Normandy remained one of the richest provinces of the Old Regime – and after the Revolution, its agrarian development continued. Agricultural societies were formed to spread new knowledge and techniques; benevolent proprietors created fermes-modèles to showcase agricultural improvements. (You can visit one of them today at Avoise near Alençon, about half an hour’s drive from the Chateau.)
Agriculture in Normandy, as in France, remained rather antiquated in the 20th century, with tractors replacing oxen and the mighty Percheron horse in the 1950s.
But although machines and methods have improved production, the Norman paysan, like farmers everywhere, grows up understanding that Nature isn’t always a friend.
After I spoke with Jean-Yves, I asked him to hand me back to Madame Brigitte.
“I forgot to ask about your foot,” I began.
“Ah, oui!” she exclaimed, brightly this time. “I’ve just received the news that the American wheat harvest is very bad!”
A scene from the 1950s in the wheat fields of Normandy.
Yes, wheat prices are edging up!
Outside in the balmy air of late July, the long summer evening streaks shadows across the great lawn. A cow lows softly to her calf. A few doves call from the trees. The bells of the church of Saint-Lhomer toll the Angelus. And I can hear the tractors humming in the fields.
«C’est avec des mains noirs qu’on mange du pain blanc!»
“With hands black with earth, we eat white bread,” says the old French adage, reminding us that the good things of life come from daily toil and perseverance.
With warm summer wishes,
