Canal 22

Yesterday morning, I drove to the bakery to get bread together with some pastries for Madame and Monsieur Dupuis. Monsieur had come over the day before to look at the mill in order to tell me why it wasn’t holding water in its basin. Just before he left, he rang the front doorbell to give me his report. Since I was getting ready for the American luncheon, I had just taken a shower, my hair was wrapped in a towel, and I was brushing my teeth. I hung out the window wearing a robe and not being able to talk since I had a toothbrush in my mouth. He told me I needed to clean the grille, but I didn’t hear the "grille" part, I just assumed he meant I needed to clean the canal. That’s a job that requires a lot of money to be forked over, and it can’t be done until the canal is totally dry, either by hiring someone or purchasing an industrial strength gasoline powered weed whacker. So there’s nothing for me to do for the moment if that is the problem. I’ll let my husband go out and compare weed whackers.

After Monsieur Dupuis left, I felt rude that I hadn’t taken the time to come down and speak to him face to face, so I delivered a box of assorted pastries the next morning. His wife, who came out in her bathrobe was very pleased. He asked me if I had cleaned the grille, and I said “no.” He then took me down to his cave and handed me a type of pitchfork with long, curved tines. So bidding au revoir I headed off to the source of the canal. When I drove in the driveway that leads to the large, abandoned, maison de maitre of the famille de Folmont, and is our access to the beginning of our canal, there was a man standing there, near his car, who asked me if I needed to get through. I replied that I was just there to clean the grille. He was a young pleasant-looking man and I wasn’t afraid to be alone with him off the road in an abandoned wooded area, because I had this huge, menacingly, sharp pitchfork that I pulled out of the car. He took off immediately.

I made my way down the steep metal stairs leading to the river and the head of the canal. I pried off and pulled up lots of leaves and sticks from the grille, along with a ripped t-shirt. The scent of urine permeated the morning air, leaving a clue as to what the young man had been doing. I was able to clear away enough leaves and sticks to allow a stronger current of water to flow. I was very pleased with myself for having mastered a small component of mill stewardship. About an hour later, the water started to arrive in a small trickle at our mill.

Now the canal needs to be cleaned of all its weeds. We paid a man a couple of thousand Euros to do that two years ago, but as soon as we accomplished that task, the water dried up for two years because of a blockage in the pipe that carries the water under the de Folmont’s driveway.

So now, we have the source fixed, but the canal needs to be cleaned out of all its weeds. I fault the previous owner of our property, who worked for us until June 1st, for not getting the sequence of work right. Following his advice we cleaned the canal, only to have the weeds grow for two years because he didn’t see that the problem was the blockage in the pipe, then we were sued by the Comte because his portion of the canal ran dry, and soon after our canal ran dry, then the problem at the source was fixed, again taking a lot of money, and the previous owner/caretaker didn’t think to mention, that the canal doesn’t flow if it’s thickly populated by tall weeds that suck up the small stream of water. So we’ve had Catch 22 after Catch 22 in dealing with this mill. Voila! The new name for the canal: Canal 22.

And I question if cleaning the canal this summer is worth it. It seems as if every farmer up our small river valley has planted corn this year, and corn takes a lot of water to grow. So the stream is already running low, and it isn’t even July 1st yet. I doubt that we will have enough water to fill the mill pond. Yesterday, the pond seemed to be filling slowly, but surely. This morning I went out and there is no pool of water as there was yesterday, it’s just a thin stream running out under the small dam, which is built to let water run out under it. Trouble is, we don’t have enough water running in to overcome the amount of water that is flowing out.

So here’s the third summer in a row which will the canal will consume more money and consume me as I attempt to establish a meaningful flow of water. Monsieur Dupuis augments his retirement income by researching mill issues for an attorney up in Souillac. When I was over at his house he held up a piece of paper with the name of an American couple from Los Angeles written on it and asked me if I knew them. I said no. He said he was working on a legal problem they were having with their mill. I told Monsieur Dupuis that the French government needs to enact a law so that when stupid Americans come to France and are considering the purchase of a water mill, they need to be handed a sheet that lists and warns them of the trials and tribulations which will inevitably befall the owner who lives only part of the year at his mill. Monsieur and Madame Dupuis laughed and agreed with me. (Come to think of it, it’s rather interesting that I know of several water mill owners and they are all Americans . . . the French aren’t buying these albatrosses. The French do like to buy the windmills and restore them. They’re easier to manage because you don’t have to deal with droughts, insane Counts who share your canal, and tree roots blocking your culverts.)

I tried to take the joke to a personal level, by telling Dupuis that when he found out an American couple was buying the Moulin de Latour, he should have moved heaven and earth to find us and warn us against the purchase. But he and his wife didn’t find it funny . . . I think they thought I might take them to court for not warning me about water mill ownership – they used to own one which they sold to the Comte and then he promptly tore it down. And it would be against Monsieur Dupuis’ financial interests if stupid Americans stopped buying albatross water mills in France.

I was so proud of my grille cleaning, that I went out almost every hour to check on the progress of the filling of the mill pond. Everything was going as it should. That was until this morning, when I discovered to my chagrin that the pool had disappeared and the water was running out as fast as it was running in. Blanche was oblivious to my despair. She was getting high eating the pods off the nearby poppy plants.

I wrote about the Pagnol novel I’m reading a few posts ago, Jean de Florette. I’m at the point in the book where Jean has lost all his crops due to a lack of water, and is on the verge of dying from sunstroke. Struggling with my own canal, I deeply, deeply feel this character’s despair.

And despair was the overwhelming emotion I felt today as I pulled a million weeds and couldn’t discern any notable improvement. Preston went out and mowed, and then the fan belt that turns the blade shredded and fell off. After the weeding, I went and cleared brush and moved decades old piles of bottles, broken tiles, pieces of pipe, and assorted trash that had been throw on the bank above the canal by the previous owners. The work was hot, my arms hurt from hand sawing and moving heavy things and there is a big pile of branches now which need to be moved and shoved into the wood chipper. I think it will be decades before my work alters the grounds here into something pleasurable to view . . . instead of their current despair-inducing state.

I’m going to go out and sit on the opposite side of my sheep’s fence and sew a tablecloth by hand. I did it yesterday and found it to be extremely relaxing.