Things are looking up... sort of

I went out for a walk with the dog yesterday afternoon. The sun was shining but big dark clouds were moving in from the west, and I was walking toward them. It had been chilly enough in the morning to make us resort to turning the heat on for an hour or so.

Sure enough, when I got out toward the end of the gravel road that runs through the vineyard, it started raining. I was about a mile from the house.

The arc-en-ciel from maybe a kilometer out —
I almost regret complaining about this weather.

Luckily, it didn't rain too hard or too long. I was wearing a rain parka with a hood on it, and when I turned back toward the house the wind was at my back. My face stayed dry. As I cut across the vineyard after walking a ways on the paved road, I saw the rainbow — l'arc-en-ciel.

In the close-up you can see our house and the neighbors'.

At the end of the rainbow were our house and our hamlet. That was a pretty sight. I'm taking it as a sign that the weather will get better this coming week — that and the MétéoFrance forecasts for warm, even hot, sunny weather by Wednesday or Thursday. Sunny weather will be our pot of gold.

The grapes at La Renaudière are looking healthy,
for the time being.

P.S. On my walk this morning, I ran into one of the grape-growers who has vines out back. He was spraying what I assume was "Bordeaux mixture" up and down some rows. The Bordeaux mixture includes copper and lime, and spraying plants with it prevents mildew from growing. It's a fungicide, in other words.

« Ça va ? », I asked Bruno. « Oui, ça va », he said, adding that it would be nice if we'd had a little less rain He was wearing rubber knee-boots and splashing around in water and mud as he worked. When I mentioned that forecasts call for hot sunny weather over the coming days, he just shook his head.

I'm not sure if these are flowers
or actually grapes already on the vines.

If it turns hot, with all this moisture in the ground and humid conditions, that's bad for the grapes, according to Bruno. We need some cool, dry, breezy weather at this point. I think we'll go out and spray our tomato plants with some Bordeaux mixture today. Actually, Walt just went out to do it now.