Oh I couldn't agree with you more. When I was there I wanted to get my discharge over there and stay there. I'd met a young lady from Kobenhaven (Copenhagen) and wanted to marry her and live in europe. The military would not let me because after my four years I was still only 20 years old. I came back home and we wrote for three years but in the fifties and early sixties I was only making three bucks an hour doing construction work and could never earn enough to go back or have her come over here. Time faded things and I finally joined the sheriff's dept and got very busy with that and pastoring a local church. Green a funny story: One time I had to lock up a member from my church, he was drunk, and he said pastor you said your supposed to set us free, the bible say's that, I laughed and told him I know but I have to lock you up first so I can set you free later. I would love to go back, and, I agree it's the rural communities that really captured my heart. I remember going down the rural roads and seeing chickens and farm animals everywhere and wondering how anyone knew what belonged to who. Why did you go over there? Nancy is only about thirty five miles from Verdun which was one of the world war two main battles. I visited many countries while I was there as going from country to country there, then, was like going from state to state here. I have forgotten much of the language as there is no one to speak it with. Hay
Introducing myself
Haystack is certainly full of surprises. First he's a chicken man, then he's a preacher, then we find out that he was in the military after WWII and traveled to France. Then he was a sheriff's deputy. What's next from this man with the big hands?
Did you all notice his GGS has those same hands?
Hay, I love those stories! What a shame about the girl from Copenhagen; was it in France that you met her, and was that where you wanted to live? And have you ever gotten back in touch with her to see what path her life took?
We went over there because an email friend on an artists' list I belong to moved there and had several of the list members come over to do an art workshop. We went the following year, by ourselves (DH and I), and she and her DH were wonderful; they let us use their second house and showed us all around. A fantastic way to learn how to negotiate a foreign country. Then we went back again the following year and had our GD meet us after about a week. We'd like to get back there; maybe next fall. We're way too busy in the spring! But I try to make our place a little Frenchified to console myself for not being able to return as much as I'd like.
I've never been to France but that's where my family's from. We've been in Canada for a few generations but have lots of Family still there or that went back to live there. Growing up, almost every year, some one came down for a few weeks to visit. My parents went there every few years too...but they never took me or my siblings. I've always wanted to go and see were I come from...maybe one day I'll be able to :-)
What area is your family from, Batflower? Our friends are in the Aude département, south of Carcassonne, and we love that region. We didn't get to France until well after we retired, so there's hope for you. I had always wanted to go, being a francophile from childhood; I tried to talk my mother into letting me do an exchange in high school but she wasn't hearing any of it. So I had to wait {{should that be a Sulking opportunity, I wonder??}}.
That must have been fun, to have French relatives visiting you as a kid. Did they have anything to say about Canadian accents? I notice that Canadian sitcoms on TV5 Monde are subtitled in French so that les français can understand what's being said, and the words on the screen are sometimes different from the words being spoken.
Greenhouse, I had gone to Copenhagen on leave with a friend who was stationed with me. He married a girl from there and was going to move her stuff to Nancy. I went with him and when we got there we went in seperate directions. I was in the city just knocking around and looking it over and two ladies got out of a cab I walked over to the cab to ask him where a visitor could go for a bite to eat and I loved to dance so I told him that and one of the ladies jumped into the conversation and told me a nice club to go to. I jumped into the cab and asked him to take me there. He did, after I'd been there about half an hour in walked the same two ladies and they found me and asked if they could sit down. They spoke english very well. They took me later to their home and I met the one girls brother and he was my age. He and I really hit it off. I spent the entire month with the brother and his sister, and of course the whole family. They held a wedding while I was there and it was an entire blast that lasted almost a week. Again they treated me like family and Lisa, the young lady was eighteen and I was seventeen. They loved American music and we would sit around all evening singing american songs. They would always ask me to teach them a new song. Of course I fell in love really with the whole family...LOL...Anyway I don't usually talk about it as my present wife really (Whom I love) doesn't like to hear about it.
Your story is most wonderful, having a family to host you is the only way to go. If you go as a tourist you only see tourist traps and that is not the real country. I was told I would hate France and that they hate the americans. What I found was they hate brash military men who acted like they owned France. I treated them as I was the true foreigner in their country, I wanted to learn from them. They took me in and taught me so much. I loved the French people and learned that if you were going to learn their language you had to delelope what I call the (liquid tongue) You almost have to slobber to speak good French. No wonder it's called the language of love. LOL
Batflower, you must make it a goal to go to your home country. I love Canada but France is a whole different world. France has a lot of influence on and in other Countries as well, When I was there we used the French Francs (money) in Belguim, many of the areas of Germany, a very small country called Saarland, Austria, and they had their own money as well. Do you know excatly where you were born, and do you have family in that area? What a great experience that would be for you. P.S. How's the hatching going? Hope your having a blast. Hay
Here's a great idea: Lets meet together go to France and bring back a coop full of Black Copper Marans from Marans France. Yippie!!!
We're from Toulouse.
I don't remember if they said anything about the accents when I was a kid, but my family speaks kind of a hybrid french that's between the 2. My dh and I lived in northern Quebec, in the Appalachians, for a few years. Him speaking no french when we got there. He picked up a very Quebecois french. When my dad's cousin came and stayed on my farm for a few days last summer. The 2 of them couldn't talk without a translator...very funny!
Hay, my hatch was a failure, I had a temp. spike up to 49c. when I got up one morning, cmoxen and grownut walked me threw candling and we found that none of the eggs developed. I changed the temperature gauge and will be putting more eggs in tomorrow...
Sorry to hear that, but, practice, practice, practice. Hay. P.S. One thing for sure, it can only get better. You'll get it.
Batflower, we fly in to Toulouse when we visit our friends; it's the closest airport. Actually I guess Perpignan would be slightly closer, but you have all those gorges to drive through then and I wouldn't want to do that jetlagged. Toulouse, which lies in much flatter terrain, is a very busy, modern city closely allied to aviation technology, but the countryside around it is gorgeous. Funny about your husband's Quebecois French! I'll bet it's very different from Parisian French. And are you familiar with Louise Penny's Quebecois mystery novels? I've read two of them; they're good and I'll bet they have lots of local flavor. There's also Maria Chapedelaine, which was the first book published incorporating Quebecois expressions. When it was reprinted in France they cleaned it up so as not to upset anyone's sensibilities!
Hay, what a lovely story about the Copenhagen lass. I can see why your wife wouldn't enjoy it, but it was so long ago and you've been with her for many years. Have you ever corresponded with any of those people?
Oui, let's go get some Black Copper Marans! I haven't had much luck with Salmon Faverolles, another French breed...
My family is from France. They were royalty of sorts. Can't remember the town right now but it will come to me. They had a very large estate they called Montmillian. I think that's the correct spelling. They were located very near Bonaparte and my ancestor was a priest who married Napolean and Josephine. His defeat and their friendship with him is what brought them here to the US. They feared retrobution from the government. They stayed in Baltimore for a year or so and were able to return to France. They decided they liked the US better, sold all their holdings and set up shop here. They spread out all over the country after that but some of the family is still in France and some of the family here goes over there for a reunion. I have not been myself as I cannot afford the trip. The reunion next year is to be in Minneapolis and I might just be able to make that one. The family name is Larpenteur.
your hatching more bcm's Hay! How many do you have now? I'd like to see some chick pictures if you could/would take some ;-) Also, what type of incubator is that?
Cajun, When you head to Minneapolis, you might as well stop here for a bit. I'll show you around & have a lunch or something.
Did you know St. Paul, close neighbor of Minneapolis, has a Larpenteur Ave ?
I hope you meant Minneapolis, MN & not Kansas.
Bernie
Bernie,
Yes, it is MN. They have Larpenteur everything. The family has a long history there abouts. One of the ancestors was numbered among the 12 founding fathers of St. Paul.
The way our branch of the family got down the bayou is not quite so glamorous. LOL My GGGF, Armand Bayard Larpenteur, got in a duel in France with another young man who wanted the hand of the same young lady. Problem was, the young lady in question was Armand's first cousin so, though he won the duel, her parents forbid it and he was exiled to the states. I don't know how he ended up in La but he went on to marry the daughter of a prominent sugar cane farmer and they did well by all accounts.
This message was edited Dec 18, 2009 5:50 PM
Oh, so the street is named for the family then. Interesting. You sure learn a lot here on Dave's!
Batflower, yes i'm hatching more black copper's. I'm also hatching more seramas, and cuckoo marans. I have two incubators going and also five serama eggs under a silkie hen.
The incubator is a Brinsea, three egger. It is digital and it does everything for you and is by far the best there is. It is small but we bought it so we could loan it to local schools for science classes and such, I use it a lot and it is so accurate and never spikes, never fails.
I paid a hundred fifty for it and I totally love it. I am now considering buying the new brinsea octagon, it's about four hundred and holds forty full size eggs or sixty five seramas.
Thanks for the info, I'm using a home made incubator, it also holds 3 eggs but its sooooo hard to monitor. A friend lent it to me, he uses it to hatch parrots. (and it fits 6 parrot eggs) I must get a better one.......I know what I'm asking Santa to bring me for Christmas ;-)
That's fascinating, Cajun. Lots of stuff on Larpenteurs on Google. They come from Montmelian, in Thomery, France. Here's the first page I checked out:
http://larpenteurkin.tripod.com/id4.html
And here's a personal narrative that's very interesting, too:
http://www.xmission.com/~drudy/mtman/html/larpenteur/index.html
This looks like a family website with a link to the chateau at Montmelian:
http://larpenteurlinks.blogspot.com/2009/08/pierre-desvarreux-larpenteur-dies.html
This message was edited Dec 18, 2009 11:04 PM
Cajun I lived in Bosier City, LA. for a year and I went down south with a friend from the area, They were having a cajun shindig, and it was wonderful. The food and Cajun French music was wonderful. I was very young then as that was in 1961. But it was an experience I will never forget. I have never seen dancing like they dance and had never heard music like that before. I loved the experience. Hay
Hay,
Thinking of the music makes me homesick. There is truly nothing like it in the world.
GHG,
Thanks for those links. I'll check them out.
I have the book in the link. It's really a good read.
The blog in the bottom link is run by my 1st cousin, Beth. There is a pic of her on the left hand side. Her dad is my Mom's twin brother.
Thomery is the town I could not think of.
That's so interesting, Cajun! I'd LOVE to have ties to France, but alas....
It's just a far away thing to me. I'll never get to go there and don't know that I'd want to. I like it here in our country very much and there are so many beautiful things here I have not seen. I'd love to see all the national parks before I die.
This is definitely a beautiful country; we've been back and forth several times and it's awesome. But it's also fun to see a very different and much older culture. It gives you a different perspective on the U.S., too.
Grannynancy....Have you lost any more chickens? Did they survive the snow we had the other day? I hope things are OK with you and your lovely chickens. Jo
I've wondered where GrannyNancy went too, and how she is doing....
I think we scared away catscan.
We have a skunk in the live trap right now. We keep it set all the time.