Today is the day. I'm finally going to till up the vegetable garden plot. According to local tradition, there is no longer any danger of frosty mornings (until autumn). Walt has seedlings growing that will soon need to be planted out. Meanwhile, we've had two or three sunny (though cool) days now. In past years I've tilled the garden plot in March or April, but last year at the beginning of winter we covered it with a couple of big tarps. Yesterday we pulled those up and the result looks good: fairly dry soil, with no weeds growing in it.
Meanwhile here's a slideshow of some plants and flowers in our Loire Valley springtime environment. It runs for 1½ minutes.
Walt mentioned on his blog yesterday that we are starting the work of moving things around up in the loft. We have a tentative start date of June 1 for the job of having in a half-bath (known as un WC or des toilettes in French) put in up there. We've lived for 16 years in this one-bathroom house, but with the passing years (I'm 70 now) we feel we need a little more comfort. I'm getting too old to climb down our steep staircase in the dark, in the middle of the night, to get the bathroom. Our bedroom is in the loft but the existing WC is on the main level of the house, with the kitchen, living room, guest bedroom, etc.
Part of moving things around in the loft is doing a good spring cleaning. I'm getting ready to get rid of a thousand or more CDs and DVDs. I hope they can be recycled. They're mostly disks on which I have recorded all my photos over the past 20 years, as well has some 200 French movies and 100 English-language movies, plus a lot of TV series and documentaries. Over the past five years, I've also recorded all those photos, films, and TV shows onto external hard disks, so the CDs and DVDs are now obsolete and redundant — not to mention that they're clutter and dust-catchers. Many computers aren't even equipped with optical CD/DVD drives any more. Tablets, you know...
Two things:
ReplyDelete1) I put in the photo of the bowl of ratatouille because it was made with plants we grew in the garden in 2018 and then spent the winter in the freezer.
2) I was wrong about the weeds out around (not in) the garden plot. I pulled out a ton of them this morning, and some are so deeply rooted that they have to dug out. No miracles...
So many beautiful plants. I look forward to seeing this year's veggies!
ReplyDeletethat loft must be huge as I know even a half bath takes up more room than you expect....hopefully yall dont have to sacrifice too much space but I dont know how you have been going down the stairs for this long...your knees are better than mine
ReplyDeleteMy knees are doing okay for the time being. Walking the dog every day seems to be keeping me limber. As for tne loft, it's something like 650 ft², and you know how tiny French WCs can be.
DeleteIsn't it the truth that with each year "after a certain age" the bathroom needs to be that much closer - in particular for males. Is it one year = one foot?
ReplyDeleteI never tire of seeing Spring flowers and veggies, especially the bachelor's button that is common in Kentucky but not Alabama. I know you've got room for the WC on in your big loft. You will be so happy to have it. I assume the plumbing will connect with your bathroom below.
ReplyDeleteThat ratatouille looks really good.
ReplyDeleteI'm so luddite-ish, haven't even gotten most of my old pictures onto discs yet. And now you tell me it's too late. Ah, well.
The WC sounds like a good addition. Despite any short-term inconvenience, you'll be glad of it once the work is done.
Lovely slideshow, thank you! And I'm very relieved to hear you'll be getting a toilet upstairs so you won't have to climb stairs in the middle of the night. Good for you.
ReplyDeleteHi Ginny, it looks like the new WC will be done in June.
Delete