One vineyard picture a day

I got my flu and Covid vaccinations yesterday afternoon. Then I had a really bad night trying to get some sleep. Now my inflamed wrist is acting up again. I wonder if that could be related to getting the shots. Time will tell, I suppose. I'll go see the doctor again next week and see what he says and/or prescribes. 

Pictures and news

Every time I go out walking with the dog I take my smartphone with me. That's in case I fall down and need help getting up off the ground. I can call Walt to come help me get back home again. Or I can call the rescue squad to come rescue me. And every time I go out I see colors and shapes and scenes that inspire me to take a few pictures. Here's one:

We got two pieces of bad news yesterday. First, a good friend in the U.S. as tested positive for Covid. I haven't had a chance to talk to her yet. With the time difference and the end of daylight saving time in France but not yet in the U.S., it gets confusing and it's hard to stay in touch.

The other bad news was something we witnessed yesterday. Our across-the-street neighbor was out on his riding mower cutting the grass on his very big property for, I assume, the last time this year, before the heavy rains really set in. Then suddenly, his mower's motor stopped running right outside our front gate. Several other people came out of his house to see what was happening, and they spent 10 or 15 minutes trying to get the mower going again. Finally, they gave up and three or four of them pushed the machine back onto their property toward the garage where they keep it in storage over the winter.

This is a big deal for him, because now he has to find somebody to come get the mower, push or pull it up a ramp onto the back of a truck or a trailer, and drive it to who-knows-where to have it repaired. And then it has to be brought back. Last year this happened, and they were without a mower for nearly a year. They are the neighbors who live in Blois and have inherited their elderly parents' house in the country. They were having major renovation work done at their house in Blois when all this happened last year. I don't know if that work ever got finished.

Une omelette avec beaucoup d'épinards

If you like spinach, you'll like this omelet. It was our lunch yesterday. The other ingredients are eggs, cheese, diced onion and garlic, salt and pepper. Sauté the onions and garlic lightly in butter or oil in a non-stick frying pan. Then sauté the spinach leaves in the pan and stir the garlic and onions into them until everything is tender. Don't forget the salt and pepper.

Take the spinach out of the frying pan and set it aside, keeping it warm in a microwave or other oven. Beat four eggs in a bowl with a tablespoon or two of water and pour them into the frying pan. Put some grated or thinly sliced cheese on top of the beaten egg. Keep the heat low and cover the pan so that the egg cooks through and the cheese melts.

Finally, spread the cooked, warm spinach over half of the cooked eggs.Let the egg brown slightly, and then pull the other half of the cooked egg mixture up over the spinach. Slide the omelette out of the pan (or use a spatula) onto a serving platter with some french-fried or sautéed potatoes. It easily serves two or three, or even four.

Who's that lurking in the vineyard?

Look closely...

I'm taking a day off. I haven't written much about my inflamed wrist joint. That's because it's not really bothering me much right now. Not to say that all the pain is gone, but the debilitating pain is gone. I still have to go see the doctor again this week or next.

Walking out into the vineyard

I took this picture yesterday morning on my walk with Natasha the Sheltie.

Cooking with olives

Earlier this week, I bought a pork tenderloin roast over at Intermarché. It was for sale at a good price. I brought it home not knowing what I was going to do with it. I thought about cooking it in a cream sauce with mushrooms and onions as a kind of blanquette de porc, but we had made and enjoyed eating a blanquette de veau the week before, and we have leftovers from that in the freezer. Looking through my blog, I came upon a recipe for veal in tomato sauce cooked with onions and olives. I decided to make that.

I wanted a lighter tomato sauce, so I used a couple of fresh tomatoes (with a squirt of tomato paste) along with some chicken broth for the sauce. It kind of resembled a stir-fry, so we decided to eat it with steamed white rice — round rice in English, I think, and riz rond in French. The pork, onions, and sauce cooked together for about 90 minutes. I added some pitted black olives about 10 minutes before the end of the cooking time. Green olives would be good too — or maybe some of both.

Here's a photo of the veau aux olives I made back and 2009 and based this porc aux olives on.
And here's a link to that post.

Waiting and watching

They are doing it again. TéléMatin is saying that today is the next-to-last time that we will have to re-set our clocks in Spring and in Fall. Winter time and Summer time will be just a memory. Problem is, they've been saying that for about 10 years now. We shall see.

Above is a photo I took in October 2015 — ten years ago.

This coming week we'll be getting our influenza and covid 19 shots. One in one arm, the other in the other arm. I hope I don't get the flu. Back in California, for three years in a row I got a flu shot and, each time, not long afterward, I came down with the flu. So I stopped getting them. I haven't ever had the shot or the flu again since then. We'll see this time.

October storm clouds over Saint-Aignan

We have had a lot of unsettled weather this past week. I took these pictures of our October skies three days ago. Since then, we've had rain and a lot of fierce wind. We're waiting for the weather to settle down and for the landscaping contractors crew to show up and start trimming our long, tall, and wide cherry laurel hedge before winter sets in. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying watching and taking pictures of puffy white clouds against a bright blue sky.

Re-planted vineyard parcels

The noise of stormy winds and heavy rain kept me awake for a while last night. I've been sitting here in front of my laptop for nearly two hours now, and the winds are still fast and and furious. The worst weather is along the coast though, so in a way we're being spared. Did you know that a tornado touched down just north of Paris (10 miles from Notre-Dame cathedral) a few days ago?

Here are some recent photos of new stakes and wires that will support newly planted grape vines next year. The newly planted parcel of vines is less than half a mile from our back gate.

Yesterday's afternoon walk

The tree on the left above is my plum tree. I planted it in 2010. I had grown it by potting up pits from plums growing on a neighbor's tree. A few weeks ago, its leaves were a deep purple color. Now they've turned a brighter shade of red. Above right is a snowball bush growing in that same neighbor's yard. It's looking good this year.

There aren't many Queen Anne's lace plants this late in the season, but I noticed a pretty one yesterday afternoon.

Yesterday Tasha and I had an encounter with two border collies when we were out walking. One of them, a female, was friendly and curious to see Tasha. The other one, a male pictured above, was more aggressive. The woman who keeps them came running over to get them back in her yard. Somebody had left her front gate open, she said. This is the same woman whose billy goat attacked Walt after escaping from her yard last winter. She seems like a nice person, but she needs to pay more attention to her animals, I'd say.

Yesterday morning's sunrise

I took this picture out in the back yard at 9:15 yesterday morning. It was not a brilliant start for the day.
In fact, we had alternating sunny spells and rainshowers all day long.

More old vineyard photos

These are some photos I took in the Renaudière vineyard back in October 2018.
I was using a Panasonic Lumix-TZ3 compact digital camera back then.

By the way, today is the 20th anniversary of my blog. I posted for the first time on October 20, 2005. About what? About food, of course. The ED market featured in that post closed down many years ago...

Yesterday's pink sunrise

I can't decide whether I'm having trouble getting the colors right on this photo, or whether this is

what sunrise really looked like yesterday morning. The sun rose at about 8:17.

Seven years ago in the vines

Seven years ago, in 2008, this is what the vineyard looked like on 18 october. This year (2025), all the grapes were harvested weeks ago. I guess the hot weather we had in June, July, and August ripened the grapes much earlier than in previous years. It's too bad, I think, because the grapes in late October 2008 were so beautiful.

Meanwhile, the weatherman on Télématin this morning says we should expect significant rain starting tomorrow. MétéoCiel says to expect some light rain starting at 5 p.m. tomorrow, lasting until noon on Monday. Accuweather says rain will start at 7:00 p.m. tomorrow, but will only last for an hour. On ne sait pas sur quel pied danser...

Late sunrise

Here in Saint-Aignan, the sun doesn't rise until about 8:15 at this time of the year. Still, I go for a walk every other morning, and I take my phone with me. That's in case I fall down and can't get up. I could always call Walt on his phone and he would come find and rescue me. But the phone has a built-in camera, so I'm always tempted to take a few pictures. They come in pretty dark, and I have to tweak them to make them presentable. That's what I've done to these. I took them yesterday morning.

Colors and signs of the season

Above left, the northwest corner of our back yard, with my (red) plum tree and our (yellow) fig tree.
On the right, a grape vine just outside our back gate.

Above left, blood red grape leaves on the northern edge of the vineyard.
Right, grape vines outside our back gate, with our neighbors' houses in the distance.

Above left, a hydrangea in mid-October. Right, firewood waiting to be burned when winter comes.