Overcast

Can't even remember the last cloudy day. We headed out to try De Ferme en Ferme anyway -- a group of farms hold an open day, with most of them offering tours and/or lunch. Our first one was interesting: a very small farm on drained salt marshes on the outskirts of Narbonne. They've pulled up all the vines and grow olives (for oil and eating), lentils, chickpeas, a little wheat, and also grass for hay -- making small oblong bales to serve the market for people who have a pony or two and can't manage the massive round bales which are ubiquitous now. We got a good tour and sampled the excellent, if pricy, olive oil (I bought 250 ml for 8 euros!). There was also a visiting pig farmer from whom we bought sausage and rillettes.

From there we went to the nearby manade (black bull farm) for lunch. As was the case with this event last year, the signposting was terrible and it took us ages to find it. When we got there, not a lot was going on, except for a bunch of amateurs trying to cook and serve bull burgers and chips to a crowd, with inadequate equipment and poor organisation. We skipped the chips to get served faster, and after we'd peered at the bulls in the distance and said hello to some ponies, there was nothing else to do. So we went back to farm number 1 to avail ourselves of the excellent sheep's milk ice cream on offer.

On the way home we stopped at another small and diverse domaine: vegetable gardening, olives, goats, chickens, a couple of Gascon pigs. They also do B&B and have a beautiful garden around their fine 19th century mansion. We'll remember to have lunch there next time.

All my photos were really boring. We spotted these flamingos in a rice paddy while we were driving around looking for the manade.