Wild Boars and an Air Balloon

Normally when the little ones come over we usually play in the garden or do some other activities with them but yesterday there was no need as a few wild boars and a hot air balloon did that for us:). The kids went into the garden to pick some strawberries and my neighbour called to them and asked them if they would like to see the sangliers  (Wild boar) feeding as they have recently finished building a compound to rear them. They have one male and two females and  8 marcassins (babies) now 3 months old. These little ones will be killed at 6 months and roasted on a spit.  C'est la vie!

 
They are fenced in obviously and the male top picture did not like it one bit that we were watching them and was grunting and pawing the ground I was glad to be on this side of the fence.
We were then invited into the house for a glass of something and I wish you could have seen the kid faces when the saw these on the wall.

These are the upper and lower tusks of the boars that her son has collected over the years and on the back of each one there is the date, sex and weight of the unfortunate boar.

I see many of these beautiful creatures crossing the fields in front of our house and for me I prefer to see them alive and not stuffed, the one above is or rather was a female deer (une biche). 

This has to be the ugliest boar I have ever seen just check out these tusks it weighed in at a mere 230kg, can't imagine sitting in this room and feeling relaxed somehow with that staring at me.

The entire room has no less than 14 heads along with a wall of tusks and various guns dotted all round the room and I think the kids thought it was a museum, which  in a sense it is. The boar is probably the most hunted mammal in France 10s of thousands are killed each year. I have eaten wild boar once and was delicious, it tasted like beef and pork  and is marinated for up to three days and cooked very slowly with lots of red wine.

Well time to get stuck into our strawberries and were again entertained watching the balloon rise and fall and we really thought it was going to crash, you could hear the roar of the hot air as they were trying to gain height and finally they did and drifted off down the valley. I have no doubt that the views they got must have been fabulous but for me I think I will just keep both feet on the ground.