Janvier, février, mars...

Spring can't come soon enough. Being housebound all winter — two winters in a row — has gotten pretty old. We've had some sunny days, but we've had more gray ones. It's been cold but damp, not snowy. The closest thing we've had to anything pretty is some freezing fog. Here are some wintertime views from our house outside Saint-Aignan in the Loire Valley. These days as many as 15 people live more or less full-time in the hamlet, which is made up of nine houses. A year or two ago, there were only eight or nine of us here.

1       2
That's our house on the right above. Our property is on the edge of a vineyard. The vineyard parcel on the left
has been totally trimmed of vines. The stumps will be dug out soon, and new vines will be planted in their place.

3       4
That's freezing fog on the limbs and branches of the birch trees in our neighbors' yard. On the right is another
neighbor's house. She doesn't live there; she just visits every few months. In summer
we can't see her house at all. It's hidden by branches and leaves.

5       6
On the north side, our property borders on a strip of land that is basically abandoned. Nobody seems to know
who owns it, not even the mayor of the village who is our neighbor. Notice how so many trees are falling over.
On the right, there's a view showing our back yard and the vineyard beyond on a foggy March day.

7       8
Last summer, new neighbors bought the house on the left, which is across the road from us. They've been
working doggedly to get the property cleaned up. On the right is the other half of
our back yard, where we have our vegetable garden in summer.