Le Vernet: an ancient machine, a local figure and a famous hamlet in Alpes de Haute Provence

Last update: 20/08/2022
Direction Le Vernet. It's a village in the Alpes de Haute Provence, in the Digne region (see map at bottom of article). André Abbe shows us an old agricultural machine used to grow cereals. Then André introduces us to Jean-Marie Michel, a well-known figure from Le Vernet. Finally, André takes us to the nearby chapel of Pié Fourcha. This hamlet became sadly famous with the crash of the Germanwings plane on March 24, 2015.
About oats: a little slang

About oats: In French, "avoir du blé" means to be rich. In Provençal, to be rich is "aguer de civada", to have oats. Civadier or Sivadier (the producer or seller of oats) is a family name.
Jean-François Sivadier is a theater director I don't particularly like. I suffered as a spectator at one of his productions, Brecht's "The Life of Galileo" (I've gone off topic once again).
Jean-Marie Michel welcomes cattle to the Vernet mountains

shepherd communal, Jean-Marie spent his summers herding cows from Vernet (Alpes de Haute Provence) and neighboring communes. In June, each owner would take his animals to the starting clearing, and they would all reach the Gorgeas hut in a morning's walk.
The high mountain pastures of Le Vernet are home to the canton's cattle during the summer. I was lucky enough to follow the herd's ascent to the mountain pastures, and later in 2008 its descent, in the company of our late friend Jean Marie Michel, the shepherd cantonal who was responsible for this estive.
A passionate stockbreeder, Jean-Marie owned a fine herd of Salers cows. The recently restored shepherd hut now bears his name.
Up there with Jean-Marie on the Têtes mountain

Jean-Marie Michel passed away in 2021. I wanted to pay tribute to him. He spent his entire life in Le Vernet, a village located between La Javie and Seyne les Alpes (Alpes de Haute Provence). A passionate breeder, he had created a small, very homogeneous herd of Salers cows, which were his pride and joy.
Salers come to us from the Cantal, and there are very few of them in the Southern Alps. Between June and October, he spent most of his time on the montagne des Têtes at the cabane du Gorgeas tending the communal herd, but for the rest of the year, he devoted his energies to his work as a breeder and his mandate as the commune's first deputy.
Together with Mayor François Balique, he formed an effective elected duo that lasted 45 years.
Up there with Jean-Marie on the Têtes mountain

Every time I visited my friends in Le Vernet, I was amazed by Jean-Marie's capacity for hard work, both literally and figuratively... In fact, Jean-Marie and his friends used to bake a lot of bread in the communal oven for the village fête.
Jean-Marie's only hobby was hunting... and he was a fine hunter, I was told.
At no time in his 75 years of life did he ever want to move anywhere else. Thank you, Jean-Marie, for keeping your corner of the mountains alive, well-tended and beautiful.
Do you know where Salers cows come from?

Talking of Salers, these beautiful red cows are a big hit at the Salon de l'Agriculture every year. Like their Aubrac neighbors, they are both meat and dairy breeds.
Salers cheese has a PDO label, so gourmets who don't know it yet should try it.
Le Vernet was sadly in the news when a crazed pilot threw his plane down a mountain not far from the village. This event made a hamlet in Le Vernet famous.
Salers, star of the Paris Agricultural Show in 2020

I photographed these Salers bulls, the pride of the Haute Auvergne, at the Salon de l'Agriculture on February 29... and yet it seems so long ago. It was the last day of insouciance. The aisles were overflowing with people rushing to buy solid and liquid gastronomic specialities. The next day, the show was closed by the authorities, and the nightmare of the increasingly serious coronavirus began.
Locked away in my kitchen, I watch these quiet behemoths with nostalgia. Once upon a time, on February 29, I'll remember, I was quiet too.
A hamlet made famous by the Germanwings crash

We leave the mountain pastures for the hamlet of Pié Fourcha.
This hamlet, between the villages of Prads and Le Vernet (Alpes de Haute Provence), lies just a few hundred meters from the point of impact of the German plane that a demented co-pilot had flown into.
Abandoned for a hundred years, the hamlet had fallen into ruin. The chapel that can be seen beyond the demolished walls has been rebuilt to make Pié Fourcha a place of meditation and remembrance.
Many thanks to Claude Boyer, Jeanne Monin, Giselle Penat-Laborde and François Abbe for their contributions.

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