More introduction, in photos!

Welcome to the Farm at Gwenves!

La Boulangerie

The Bakery

Here is the bakery from the outside.  The wood is piled high in the foreground
to be sorted and dried (under the overhang) to fire up the oven twice per week.
They are beautifully re-building this barn, section by section.

Here is the bakery, in wood and cob, and the oven in stone, just beyond.

Here's where the oven meets the bakery.

Above the oven it reads, "I am the bread of life," to remind the
bakers who they serve.  The words are written in Breton,
the native language of Bretagne, this formerly Celtic region.

Team Robert and Nico load the sourdough into the oven!  They dance through
this routine together over and over, placing upwards of 40 loaves in the oven:
Puff of flour, dump the dough, pass off the basket, score the dough, open the
oven, slide in the dough, close the oven, puff of flour...
This video is for Avery.  :)

On the other side of the barn, we see the mill peeking out.  Inside the small
room, there are two large electric mills, often running, to grind organic flour from
wheat, rye, spelt, corn, rice, and buckwheat, which is sold at the local food coop.

L'Atelier

The Workshop

Another barn, just across the street from the bakery and mill, is also being
rebuilt from within, piece by piece.  The first construction project was their
workshop.  On one end of a long room, we find large and small looms,
treadle-powered sewing machines, and tools to card and spin wool.

The center of the atelier is a shoe shop and leatherworking space.

Finally, next to the shoe shop is a woodworking area, complete with just
about any handtool you can think of.  In this photo, Robert teaches Nico and
Marion how to make wooden buttons, on Gandhi Day.

Le Jardin
The Garden

David harvests spinach, épinard, in a greenhouse.

In the next greenhouse over, Elisabeth and Marion harvest mâche.  Baby
potato plants, pommes de terre, are hiding under the white covering behind them.

Heika (a visitor from Germany) and Christiane
prepare leeks, poireaux, for market.

Benoit plants onion seeds, oignons.

Two non-gardeners make pancakes out of abundant batter.

Nos Amis Animaux!

Our Animal Friends!

We love to visit Dewal and Keeta, Joel's horses, and feed them grass or clover.

We had three days where temperatures were below freezing.  On the
second day, Joel found a frozen lizard and offered that we could revive it in
a box in our house... :)  We were delighted it thawed out alright and released
it back into the wild.

You can have up to 250 chickens without a permit in France.
Here are a handful of the Ark's 249 laying hens.

Here's the back end of the roost.  Yanni loves to come here in the
mornings to watch freshly laid eggs roll out from behind the wall.

Two of the six cows.  Currently, there is no milk production,
but soon enough a few new calves will be born...

D'autres Endroits Importants

Other Important Places

Here is one of my good friends.
We meet often throughout the week.

The temporary office space (phone and internet) is in the white trailer here.
In front, on the benches under the overhang, we meet for communal prayers.
In this winter photo, you can't tell that the foliage growing up the columns are
rose bushes.  We look forward to seeing the plants grow and bloom each day.  :)