Endings

Endings

“I’ve been bored out of my mind lately,” says Colette.

We are drinking coffee in the courtyard of the Cabane de Bonaris, a sturdy concrete and stone structure with eco-sedum roof, perched on the rim of a hanging valley at an altitude of 1700m.

Accessed only by legs (four or two), this has been her home for the past three months. And today, with a sky of uninterrupted ultramarine, we are making the most of the early afternoon heat.

“Last week,” she continues. “The days started nice but by midday you could hardly see a bucket at five metres. Cold…? It was …freezing, freezing! So what can I do? I like reading… sure… but eight hours a day? There’s the radio… but here’s the thing: when the weather’s crap the solar panels don’t charge the batteries and when it’s sunny… well… you want to be outside.”

Collette leans back on her rock bench, draws on her roll-up and stretches out her long legs by the side of a stone slab table.

Outside the Cabane de Bonaris

The shepherd who occupied the cabane for many years before was, you might say, a bit of a handyman. It was he who lugged and levered great lumps of limestone into the courtyard to make

the unlikely outdoor tables and chairs on which we now relax. Two types of limestone are used the gritty yellow variety and the harder grey, laced through with quartz. No doubt the old shepherd had delighted in the contrast.

During our conversation I am sorry to hear that he passed away in 2014. His legacy, though, looks likely to remain for a while.

At this time of year, near the end of September, the sheep are all dry. There is no milking or cheese-making to do.The work that kept the young shepherdess busy from dawn to dusk during the summer has gradually diminished along with the daylight hours. Now, there is nothing to do but keep an eye on the flock. And later today, with her dog, she will have to walk up the mountain to the Col de Pau and over into Spain in order to bring them back.

She is proud of her work and especially proud that, this year, she has not lost a single sheep.

Not all animals make it back from their summer in the mountains. The sturdy variety of local animals, the mensch, being well adapted for this environment, are sure footed enough on the steep rocky slopes. Occasionally, however, they do fall. Cows can be struck by lightning and, here, storms are common. Then, of course, there are illnesses.

This year a higher than average number of cows have been afflicted by disease and we came across one such victim a few days before. It was lying by the side of an access track to one of the mountain valleys. From the smell, which was more like that of a butcher’s shop than of prurient flesh, it had not been dead long. It was clear, too, that there had been nothing dramatic about its

Feeding time demise. It was as if its body had suddenly deflated like a brown and white party balloon to flop down where once it had stood. Already, though, the vultures had moved in.

There are two types of vulture in this neck of the woods; the Percnoptere (Egyptian Vulture) and the more common Vauture Fauve. There must have been at least eighty sunning themselves on the east-facing side of the valley, basking in the early warmth, some with their wings stretched out showing off their three metre spread, but all waiting their turn to feed. A handful were already at the carcass squabbling while attacking the most vulnerable flesh: eyes and the soft flesh of the nether regions - easy peckings, you might say. While being impressed by the size and power of these birds it is natural, at the same time, to be revolted by their carrion habits. It doesn’t look good even understanding their essential part in the mountain’s eco-system. Their role, however, changing.

Certain organisations in the Pyrenees have felt that vultures should be encouraged and, in order to boost their numbers, have started feeding programmes with the result that these magnificent scavengers are now too populous. Consequently, a shortage of natural food for their numbers is resulting in a change of behaviour so that cases of

Vauture fauve

vultures attacking weak, but still living animals, are increasingly reported. And I have to admit that, on coming across their boisterous, belligerent gangs, I have been known to cross my fingers and hope that they don’t get any “ideas”.

A squadron of vauture fauve passes over the cabane and we look up at a sight that is both remarkable yet commonplace.

Collette will be leaving the mountain at the week end. Gold and bronze are beginning to appear in small patches of the forests which, with each day spread like a precious stain. On the open, bracken-covered slopes the mountain is rusting and the grass of the high pastures is exhausted. It is the end of the estive*. The flock will be driven down to Lescun and all the paraphernalia of her

Above: A family affair.

Right: Celebratory bell

trade - the gas bottles, the batteries, the electric fencing, the tools and all her personal possessions will be loaded onto donkeys that will, in their, turn join the possession. There will be a festival atmosphere; family and friends will join the noisy parade as the sheep’s bells announce their homecoming with something resembling an Indonesian Gamalang gone wildly out of control. And, for this special occasion, certain of the flock will be honoured with special, larger cloches, providing a deeper resonance to the event.

We ask when she expects to arrive at the road head in Labrénère and make a commitment to be there to welcome her back.

“It’s interesting,” I say recalling a conversation I’d had with Alf the week before. “It’s interesting that when we talk about the life of a shepherd now the word solitary always crops up. But, when you look around, you see the ruins of abandoned cabins everywhere. There must have been many

more people up here in the past during the estive. It doesn’t take much imagination to get a picture of the social life they must have had.”

“Absolutely,” adds Colette. “Evidence of the transhumance* is all over the place. Like the enclosures… you can still see the remains, those stone circles, and, looking at the size of them, you’d say that back a shepherd would have had no more than fifty sheep to look after.”

Collette’s flock is made up of two hundred and fifty animals. At the height of the season she made seven, four kilo cheeses each day.

Alf’s father had lived through those times. I remember him in his later years nurturing the precious cheeses in the saloir* on the ground floor of the house. His older son took on the farm and continued the seasonal traditions of the village. His accommodation, however, was nothing like that of Collette and her contemporaries. It was a very basic shelter - somewhere to sleep and eat while most of the work, including cheese-making, was carried out in the open. His was a family business. With the aid of horses, the father carried out the revitaillement* and brought down the produce to Lescun. His other role, shared with the rest of the family was to make hay while the sun shone in their fields around the village.

For centuries it was a sustainable life-style, until mechanisation, global economics and European hygiene regulations took it outside and gave it a thorough going-over.

The conversation I’d had with Alf took place in the valley where his brother had worked during all those summers, all those years ago. Later, as we climbed higher into Lazerque*, we came across his cabane, or what was left of it. It was a pile of stones and a tangle of rusty wire.

Dragged out of the wreckage by some unknown passer-by was the bedspring on

The Cabane in 1985

which he had surely passed many an exhausted night. We sat on it to eat our lunch and remembered him.

Sadly, neither the father nor the son are still here to think about the past.

It is time to go.

We thank Colette for her hospitality and she thanks us of the company. We will return to the village, our comfortable houses, our televisions our internet. She will climb to the col, dog at her side, looking for the sheep she is paid to care for.

And, as I leave, I juggle the questions of how I came to be here and what I had to leave behind. But the answers slip from my hands and tumble helter-skelter down the mountain side.

The Cabane as it is today

October 1st 2015 ______________________________________________________________________________

estive - the summer season transhumance - the practice of moving animals to take advantage of high summer pastures saloir - room where cheeses are stored and looked after, including rubbing them with salt revitaillement - taking supplies up to the shepherd (and usually bringing cheeses back.)

Lazerque - one of the lesser known valleys in the Cirque de Lescun