The house's bread oven is back in regular service thanks to the Confrérie des Anciens Fours à Pain de Chaudenay.
Indeed, the Festival takes place every 2 years in the village and on a regular basis, batches are organized either for charity or to enable the purchase of equipment or the organization of Events. On the occasion of these batches, the loaves baked in the various village ovens and the brioches baked in the Swiss Army Mobile (owned by Mr. NICOT) are sold on site.
Semolina flans are reserved for the Festival which takes place every 2 years.
The next batch will take place on April 28: "The Spring Batch" to partly finance the Chapter which will take place on June 8.
The chapter: gathering or meeting with members of a brotherhood for the purpose of promotion, decoration of people, etc....
During this Chapter, the brotherhoods of the region are invited, always with the aim of promoting ancient/regional know-how.
Processions, inductions, banquets, etc. will therefore be organized.
Inductions and speeches will take place at the house. On this occasion, the bread will be baked in the oven which will be open to the public as usual.
This year, I decided to give it a little facelift and blast away this lime which has become almost black over time to leave the stones visible.
I'll give you a preview of the work as it goes along.
March 17, 2024 : 1/3 of the right wall has been roughly cleared
March 24, 2024: The right wall is completely cleared and the rubble is in the trailer.
April 1, 2024: The door-side chests have been removed and the wall cleared.
In your opinion: a 40 cm strip of lime (space above the door) which would go around the entire oven?
April 6, 2024 : the first part of the wall on the window side is cleared.
The 2nd part also:
And the rubble removed!
April 13, 2024 : Cleaning of stone frames: window and door
Right window frame :
Framing Left window :
Door frame :
Gilles came by at my request to see the progress of the work and give me advice. I thought I could move on to step 2 but I still need to properly clean the joints between the stones. I didn't dare take everything off. So I'm going to get on with it this weekend to properly prepare for the rest of the events. Knowing that next weekend, there is a charity batch and it will be a break for me in terms of work in the oven. So I'm going to leave the oven all clean on Sunday for our favorite bakers.
04/21/2024 : Following the change of plan and as announced, the right wall was passed to the Kärsher. There are still some finishing touches to make sure the wall is clean before applying the lime that Jean-Pierre recommended and delivered to me!!! Thank you so much :).
As there is a charity batch next weekend, I cleaned up all the rubble that had accumulated again. Over time everything remained wet and I had to use a wire brush to remove everything that was stuck to the tiles. I'll just have to sweep and mop when I arrive Friday. The oven starts heating up from Wednesday so all the humidity will be driven out.
05/05/2024 : After the 2 batches last weekend, work resumes. I removed all the joints from the right wall. We don't realize it but we see the small piles in the first photo: 3 whole buckets. It is ready to receive the coating. Jean-Pierre will show me the proportions and application so that I avoid beginner's mistakes ;).
Question : Now that everything is well cleaned, the general opinion is that I leave it like that without redoing the joints which would remove the rustic look.
Any opinions and/or advice?
I'm going to start cleaning the remaining walls so I still have time. I'll take another photo for you this weekend because the stones have cleared up since then.
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