Neighbors, yard work, and lunch

Yesterday morning we were working out in the back yard — me cutting up branches we pruned out of some hazelnut and apple trees to turn them into kindling, and Walt shoveling out the compost bin — when Callie started barking at someone or something up at the front gate.

Hazelnuts grow on bushes that can become small trees.
We are pruning these back severely. There are 14 of them!

I went to see what the commotion was about. It was our neighbor, J-M, who with his wife A., the village mayor, will be leaving for California this afternoon. He had come over to ask us for a favor. He wanted to know if he could leave a little suitcase full of some of their most precious valuables with us while they are away. They have someone taking care of their house while they travel, but they said they'd prefer to leave valuable items like car keys, a camera, and I don't even know what all else, with us.

That felt nice, to have them express that kind of confidence in our trustworthiness. We couldn't really say we are good friends of theirs — just acquaintances, really, and neighbors — village residents. We of course accepted their proposal and J-M brought over a small bag later in the day. We put it away for safekeeping.

This is the back section of the hedge we've been working on.
Walt does the pruning, up on a ladder with electric shears.

A., the mayor, is somebody who could be extremely helpful to us as we negotiate the French bureaucracy to try to get 10-year residency cards, or even French citizenship, now that we have been living here for more than five years. I think she will be willing to vouch for us and to make some calls to functionaries in Blois if necessary.

We have a lot more work to do out back. The hedge-trimming isn't finished. There are birch and hazelnut branches that need to be cut into smaller pieces. We're getting together a good pile of leaves and trigs to burn as soon as we are ready and the weather allows.

Boudins blancs

Today for lunch, it'll be boudin blanc — a sausage made from veal, pork, or poultry with milk and eggs — and potatoes, with green salad. I got the boudins, these made with turkey and pork, at SuperU a few days ago. These sausages have a smooth texture a little like the inside of a franfurter, but white.

I hope these are good, despite their supermarket origins.
You can read the ingredients by clicking the picture to enlarge it.

For the potatoes, my first idea was just to sauté them. I have a bag of little red potatoes that I need to cook. French potatoes are so good.

Over the next hour or so I'm going to read through Joël Robuchon's book called Le Meilleur et le plus simple de la pomme de terre ("The Best and Simplest Potato Recipes") (1994) to look for other ideas. We'll see what I come up with. It has to be something that I can do fairly quickly toward lunchtime after working in the yard.

I'll let you know what I come up with.