Trees, leaves, and a deer

Here's a photo of a stand of trees sticking up against a gray morning sky at sunrise. We are having a late winter — it's very cold now. There's no guarantee that March will be any better. And no, my lousy coughing cold is no better today either.

If you want to see leaves right now, look down. They're on the ground all around the vineyard plots. And they're frosty most mornings. They crunch when you walk on them.

This is Tasha's favorite piece of woodland. She knows the path through it from east to west or west to east. We haven't seen any deer in these woods for a long time. But there are a lot of leaves on the ground in there.

Last Thursday, we took the Citroën over to our garagiste in Noyers-sur-Cher to have the front brakes worked on. A disk was badly worn, as  an inspection had showed. When I picked up the car on Friday morning and was driving back home, a big deer jumped out of the woods and down an embankment right in front of the car as I was coming up our road. I missed hitting the animal by about 10 feet, and Tasha wound up on the floor in the back seat, so hard did I hit the brakes. No damage done, but it was a close call.