Greens and reds

The garden is growing. It's hard to believe, after all the rain we had in May (100 mm, or 4 inches), but we may well have to do some watering before this week is over. And some hoeing, because all the rain has packed the earth down and hardened it considerably since I last tilled. There is also obviously a lot of weeding to do.

We are getting greens now. Chard — bettes à cardes in French — has come first, because we planted it first. I also have 2 rows of collard greens and one of mustard greens that seem to be doing very well. It will be time to thin them soon, because there are too many plants per row.

Swiss chard, really packed in, that I'm thinning

I've been thinning the chard plants out. They were planted very close together. We put them in early, under one of the cold frames — mini-serres, in French — that we bought back in March. That limited the space available. I did one round of thinning a month or so ago, transplanting little seedlings into their own row. Those are doing fine. The ones we are picking and eating now are the ones that were still planted too close together.

Mustard greens

There are cherries ready to be picked. I think I'll get some today. Since the weather is supposed to be warm and sunny all week, we are going to have more cherries than we'll know what to do with. Well, we know what to do with the first ones: clafoutis. More about that over the next few days.

I'm wondering if these are prunelles — sloes.
Don't know why some are small & red, others big & green.

Yesterday we had a chance to talk for a while with some future neighbors. They will be our neighbors if they — and we — outlive our current neighbors, who are 75 and 80 years old, and going strong. I'm talking about those people's eldest daughter and her husband. They and her sisters and brothers, along with their spouses, children, grandchildren, and a bunch of their cousins, are having a family get-together across the street this weekend. Today is a holiday.

Collard greens

The parents of this clan were out of town for the weekend, at a gathering of family members of their own generation. They are good friends of ours, and we know all their 7 children too — the ones who are here this weekend. After our evening with them last night, we know them even better. The eldest daughter, who is a nurse at the hospital in Blois, is designated as the one who will inherit the house across the street one day.

Cherries are ripening fast now

Her husband, who is from Toulouse via Perpignan, but who used to live in Saint-Aignan and who has now been in Blois for 20 years, told us he can't wait to retire from his job and move back to Saint-Aignan. He plans for them to occupy the house across the street full-time, whereas his parents-in-law only spend July, August, and, the rest of the year, only the odd weekend down here.

Marie-Laure and Jean-Paul will be good neighbors, I'm sure. He told us he will do everything in his power to keep the hamlet from growing any bigger. Like us, he'd rather not have more houses and more people nearby. As long as the surrounding vineyards remain vineyards, we probably don't have much to worry about.

Chard, called bettes or blettes in French

Today is a holiday, and it is also the day when Walt and I celebrate our anniversary together. This is number 26 — that's vingt-six in French. We were very young men when we decided back in 1983 to get an apartment together. That was in Washington DC. We had met and become friends in Paris in 1981. Later, we moved to San Francisco, in 1986.

Une rose dans le jardin

Tomorrow will be the sixth anniversary of our arrival in France as new residents. It was June 2, 1983, under sunny skies, with our big heavy suitcases and our elderly dog Collette in her kennel in the back of a rented Opel Zafira mini-van, that we began this new adventure. So far so good.