The vet told us yesterday afternoon, after looking at x-ray images, that Tasha's injury is "just" a sprain. All the little bones in her "wrist" are in place. Nothings broken, but the lower part of the leg is swollen. The vet gave her a shot of anti-inflammatory medicine, and gave us pills of the same kind to give her once a day for the next week or 10 days. The good news is that her limping is already visibly reduced this morning. She's putting her foot down on the floor or ground and walking carefully, but almost normally. Things are looking up!
Meanwhile, around here, our weather continues to be weirdly hot and dry. This is starting to seem like a major drought, but nobody is talking about it. It hasn't rained since mid-July. Yesterday, I did hear one woman on France Inter radio say that she's fed up with this endless summer (j'en ai marre de cet été éternel...). I kind of feel that way too. I will welcome some rainfall, so that things will feel normal again. France is supposed to be gray and damp most of the time. Then you can really enjoy the warm, sunny days that come along, instead of finding them oppressive.
We've pretty much had to give up on the vegetable garden and outdoor plants. There are still a lot of tomatoes on the vines, but they are sun-damaged and blighted at this point. The kale and chard plants are puny and sad-looking. With everything that's been going on — driving back and forth several times a week to the computer store, figuring out how to order parts from internet sites and install them, researching dishwashers and getting a new one ordered — not to mention doing all the dishes by hand! — there just isn't enough time in the day. Having to carry the dog up and down stairs for the past two days has been stressful.
Life continues, however. The grape harvest, especially. Above is a photo of a winery that's just a ten-minute walk from our house. Obviously, it's not a tourist destination. At this point out in the vineyard, most of the white wine grapes — Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, and Chardonnay — have been taken in now. Yes, those Chardonnay grapes on the north side of our yard have finally been harvested. The photos here show how mechanical harvesting machines leave the vines looking. The harvester shakes the vines hard enough that the ripe grapes fall off the stems (the stems that the grapes, or grains de raisin, grow on to form bunches, or grappes, is called la rafle in French, I think — I'm not sure if we have a word for that in English). The red grapes are still on the vines...
It's 6:08 a.m. and a big grape harvesting machine just drove by our house on its way into the vineyard, accompanied by a tractor pulling a trailer. The harvesting machines have headlights so they can be used in the dark.
ReplyDeleteGood to hear Tasha is healing. Your photos remind me of when my husband and I had a small winery here in California. Good times.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. Where in California was your winery?
DeleteDon't get a Brandt dishwasher! Horrible! I have one and so does a friend (I found that out too late) and we both hate ours. The racks are rickety and fall apart. It doesn't clean well. The drying function is non-existent.
ReplyDeleteMy rainwater tank has been empty for over a month. We have lots of clouds this morning, but then, we did yesterday, too, and it got downright hot (30!) in the afternoon.
I gave up on Brandt appliances a few years ago after our Brandt cuisinière stopped working correctly and the repairman sent to fix it said it wasn't fixable. I also had bought a Brandt countertop oven that didn't work for very long. That was enough of Brandt. We're getting a Bosch dishwasher. On Thursday, hopefully.
DeleteGood that Tasha just needs a few days R&R. The technical name for the machine is a Wobbler - well that is what we call it! They are out and about here some with early starts, very early, but so far we have not had any midnight wobbling/harvesting.
ReplyDeleteThey're called machines à vendanger or vendangeuses. In past years, when emergencies like impending heavy rains threatened the grapes at harvest time, they'd be out working at midnight or at three in the morning. This year, it's dry, so I was surprised to see the harvesters coming in so early in the morning.
DeleteGood news about Tasha!
ReplyDeleteIt is good news. We were having visions of it being necessary to carry her up and down two flights of stairs for the rest of her life/our lives. We'd have to move to a single level house if it came to that, and actually moving all our junk to a new place seems now to be more than we could manage.
DeleteJust now reading this. Glad Tasha will be well soon. Our Rosie has a torn ACL on her rear leg which should heal with time. She's a wild dog and prone to re-injury since she loves to chase squirrels.
DeleteIt is miserably dry and hot here, endless summer for sure. It's in the nineties everyday this week, yuk!
Both my friend and I have had Bosch dishwashers for years, totally trouble free. They are so quiet you sometimes wonder if they are going! Enjoy.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that endorsement. We're looking forward to getting the new machine. We had a Whirlpool dishwasher from 2003 to 2018, and it too was trouble-free. When it failed, it failed spectacularly, with water spurting out the back, shorting out our electrics.
DeleteSomeone told me about this the other day, and apparently it was near Roanoke. Unbelievable. I hope your local growers don't have similar problems.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/stolen-two-and-a-half-tons-of-grapes-from-the-vines-of-a-virginia-vineyard/2018/09/13/5afbca0a-b75b-11e8-a7b5-adaaa5b2a57f_story.html?utm_term=.f1ee5e6de591
Get well soon, Tasha.
Thievery like that has been reported in the oyster beds down on the Charente coastline, around the île d'Oléron, just north of Bordeaux. Here in the Saint-Aignan area, one Sunday morning I was in a boulangerie, standing in line, waiting to buy bread, and one of the other customers was Patricia, who with her husband Bruno owns a local winery and most of the vineyards near our house. A third customer said to her, I see you are in the middle of the harvest. No, Patricia said, we haven't started yet. Well, I saw people harvesting grapes just down the road this morning, the other person said. Patricia abruptly left the boulangerie, saying she had to go see if the grapes being harvested were on one of her vineyard parcels. I never heard or asked about this incident, so I don't know what had happened. I assume the grapes being harvested weren't hers. Hope so, anyway.
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