Danielle and Jessi's Travel Blog: On The Farm

We spent a little over a week at the Enjouanisson Farm outside of Auch, France, planting tomatoes, weeding, feeding animals, catching rabbits and trying to determine their genders, cleaning cages, mucking out chicken coops, milling grains and beans for pig food, baby-sitting, and, on one especially exciting morning, tackling sheep, flipping them on their backs, and clipping their nails. We stayed with a British couple, Louisa and Stuart, their kids Harmonie and Phoenix, and a second British couple who arrived a few days after we did to workaway - Sarah and Drew. Despite the hard work we had a relaxing and enjoyable stay. Here are a few of my favorite memories.

Showering after planing 80 tomato plants in the rain and getting covered head to toe in mud on our first day of work

Watching Ben the dog sniffing out mice in the barn

The delicious food Louisa cooked for us

Finally finishing my 16 page medical school application

Getting swamped with hugs from Harmonie and Phoenix on my first night in an obvious attempt to delay their bed time

Watching the kids enjoy their new inflatable swimming pool on an especially hot day

Taking a family trip to the man-made beach beside the lake, where Stuart bought us ice cream

Catching baby bunnies (our most enjoyable farm task by far)

Riding bikes to Montesquiou on our day off

An afternoon in Auch, walking around, sitting at cafes, and eating macaroons

Stopping at a grocery store to buy a stash of amazing European chocolate to combat the stress of applying to medical school. And then eating it ALL.

Watching the sheep we were trying to coral gracefully leap over our make-shift fence, and getting a flashback to counting sheep in order to fall asleep as a child

It happens for real

Flipping the first sheep over onto Drew's lap and seeing a level of angst normally reserved for tragic Renaissance paintings on its face.

Michelangelo's Pieta

Drew with anonymous sheep

And again

We did this all morning

The sheep in general were a lot of fun. When we fed them they turned into a sheep voltron.

Swarming

Just a couple of girls with a bucket of feed

Baby chicks hatching in an incubator next to the kitchen

Petting Gypsy, a very naughty, very lovable dog that burrowed into Sarah and Drew's tent several nights in a row

Harmonie wanting to play dress up in Danielle's sparkly gold bikini (Danielle has been admired by little girls the world over for this swim suit)

Baby piglets!!! And more specifically, seeing three piglets fall asleep stacked on top of each other. Unfortunately before I had time to get the camera the top two had fallen off.