06 February 2016

Same old same-old

Since I'll be traveling next weekend, maybe I'll come up with some new material for this blog. As for the next four or five days, it's supposed to... wait for it... turn rainy again. Are we all surprised?


It's nice that the local oak trees keep their leaves all winter. They give us some gold color when the sun shines. The gold leaves fall when new leaves start to appear in the spring.


The photo above shows, from the foreground to the horizon, new vines just getting started, productive old vines, and neglected old vines that have been taken over by a new stand of locust trees. The vineyard evolves.

12 comments:

  1. We continue to love your photos and comments on life in France. Merci beaucoup!
    L&L from Delmar

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    1. Thanks L&L. I've had a frazzled morning trying to make flight and train reservations for my sort of emergency trip to N.C. I have everything I need now except a hotel reservation in Paris or at the airport. Can't decide where I ought to spend the night before I fly out.

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  2. I suppose that the metal wire supports are expected to last longer but the wooden ones, to me, look so much nicer! Funny how the ones at an angle on the ends are still wooden.

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    1. It was more picturesque when they plowed using mules or horses, or harvested by bringing in big crews of workers to do all the work by hand, but those days are pretty much over. I do wonder why the end posts are still wood.

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  3. I like the name "locust" trees for acacia....
    it describes how they spread and gobble up untended ground perfectly!

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    1. What they call acacia in this case is Robinia pseudoacacia or "false acacia", which is known as Black Locust in its native area in the eastern US.

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    2. I call Robinia "acacia" because when I started in forestry in the UK, they had just begun to plant the 'wonder tree' Acacia...
      which was of course R. pseudoacacia....nothing spreads faster or seeds more freely.
      Whilst the wood is very useful and very hard, the way it suckers makes commercial planting very expensive...the labour needed to keep a stand open is tremendous...but as a firewood it is as good as oak.
      True acacia is only planted in the UK as a decorative...especially the golden form...but it is infertile so far north and doesn't sucker the same way.
      I love the loose, snowy blooms of your Black Locust when it is in flower, thoL.

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  4. We burn a lot of locust in our furnace. High BTUs.

    Ken, there are vineyards that have returned to using horses, even some in the Loire, I believe.

    Safe trip and I hope things are well back in NC.

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    1. There's a winery in the nearby village of Angé where they sort of make a show of pulling a plow behind a horse. Maybe they really do work that way, but it seems to me to be more of a touristy thing than a real way of working nowadays.

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  5. The view past my property which is lined with old pine trees, is a huge / as far as the eye can see, cornfield. It just goes on forever and ever ...owned by a huge family who owns a dairy and a gazillion cows. On the other side of the fields, I can see the forest .. while my view is more wide open , it is so similar to yours .. I sure wish the neighbors spoke French lol

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  6. Oh, my... sort of emergency trip to NC? I'm hoping for the best for you.

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  7. I hope your "my sort of emergency trip" to North Carolina turns out to be fairly routine. Sending best thoughts.

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