Callie, bugs, and our walks

Callie goes crazy when she sees a fly, spider, or moth on the living room ceiling. She can spot one long before we ever notice the bug sitting there. You have to wonder how her eyes perceive the broad expanse of white ceiling. Does it look like sky to her? Outside, she reacts about the same way when she sees the moon, or the sun through clouds when it looks to her, I think, like the moon.

Callie the red border collie — she came
to live with us 4 years ago this week

She doesn't just notice the bug and stare at it, however. She has a special squealy whine she produces only in these moments. If either one of us gets a fly swatter and tries to chase the bug way, then Callie goes really wild. Her bark is with ear-piercing. She's been known to jump up on the furniture in her mounting excitement. She's totally out of control. As soon as the bug is captured, killed, or chased away, she calms back down immediately.

Callie watching me from her spot among the vines

Callie and I take a walk in the vineyard every day. One day we go out in the afternoon, and the next we go out in the morning. That's the schedule, ad infinitum. On the afternoons and mornings when I don't go on the walk, Walt does. It's a schedule we worked out years ago, and we both like it. Callie of course likes it. We humans each get one walk a day, and she gets two. I know Callie never gets tired of it, and I don't either, really.

This is Callie looking back and saying:
"Are we going this way today?"

She loves to run through the vines — not just up and down the rows, but also across them, under the support wires and vine canes. Sometimes she disappears from view behind all the green leaves, but I think she always knows where her human companion is. She also tries to lead the walk, deciding which path or direction she wants to go on. But she doesn't mind when one of us decides on a different course. She always follows, even it's at a distance.

Look at these pictures from early May and early June 2007...

La Renaudière en octobre

For this Sunday morning, here are just a few pictures of the weather and environment around Saint-Aignan in October. If you haven't been here, you'll be discovering it. If you have been here, I hope these pictures will bring back some good memories.

Callie starting her morning walk out into the vineyard

Just out our back gate, where all those apples are piling up, is where the paved road ends, giving way to a gravel tractor path that runs out into the vineyard. It joins up with another paved road about a mile out. That road is the Route Touristique du Vignoble de la Touraine. We walk our dog a couple of times a day out in the vineyard and along this gravel road.

Leaves on the vines along the gravel road are turning yellow

Here's another view, a little farther out, of the road that runs through the Renaudie vineyards. You can see that the leaves on the grapevines are starting to show their fall colors now. It's been foggy nearly every morning for a week or so now. The fog hangs in there until noontime, and then the sun finally breaks through. We've been able to get our garden work done on those sunny afternoons.

Le cabanon de jardin et ses quelques dahlias

Out near our back gate, we have a garden shed where we store the lawn mower, the rototiller, the weed-eater, and our wheelbarrows and other gardening tools. She shutters desperately need painting, but it didn't get done this year. Maybe next year. Any volunteers want to come and do the job? The door is a new one that we had hung after we got here in 2003.

One of the newer houses at La Renaudière — ours

Our hamlet, called La Renaudière, is made up of nine houses. Several of them are 200 to 250 years old. Others have been built over the past 50 years, since the neighborhood got electricity, telephones, and running water. Last year all our houses were hooked up to the village sewer system for the first time. We are located about two miles (3 km) from the center of our village and about the same distance from the center of the town of Saint-Aignan. Because the paved road ends here, we have almost no traffic except the neighbors' cars and the tractors of the vineyard owners.

A clump of mushrooms growing under our biggest apple tree

The average age of the people who live at La Renaudière is about 60. Only five of the nine houses here are lived in year-round. The other four are occupied only during the summer months. Three of these are owned by people who live in the Paris area, and one is owned by a family whose principal residence is Blois, 25 miles north of Saint-Aignan.

Callie the collie

Callie is the border collie that we adopted last May. She will be 8 months old in a few days. She looks just like her father, whose name is Vince. She's very playful and loves to chew on everything still. Walt thinks she is nearly full grown, but I think she will get bigger. I hope she will calm down over the winter and stop chewing on everything.

La chasse aux crapauds

I understand that toads — crapauds — eat slugs. I don't mind having them live in the bushes and under rocks all around the house. Actually, I think they live most of the time in the underground pipes that take rainwater away from the house when it runs off the roof into the gutters. They must hide in the drainage pipes during daylight hours.

This is the first toad Callie found last night. You might
need to click the picture and enlarge it before you can
actually see it hiding under those leaves.

But these amphibians are driving Callie and us a little bit crazy. At nightfall, Callie can't wait to go outside. We want her to pee or even faire la grosse commission, but all she wants to do is hunt toads. She doesn't catch them, or hasn't yet. She hears them rustling dead leaves or the gravel as they jump around, and it is great fun for her to scare them into jumping again.

This toad might be a little hard to see against the gravel background,
but Callie could see it, even in the dark. Or maybe she was tracking it
by smell. I didn't see it until I looked at my pictures this morning.

Last night at about 10:00 I took Callie out one more time. This time I took my camera and turned on the flash. You see some of the results here. I couldn't see the toads at all when we were out there, so I was shooting pictures by sound, just following the dog's nose, as it were.

Finally, a toad on a green background

So the toads are real. I couldn't see them, but like Callie, I could hear them jumping around, rustling the leaves and the gravel. I'm surprised by the pictures, and very pleased with the sharpness and colors I got when I was shooting in the dark with the flash.

The sunsets around here are very real too. Here's the August 26 version.

Sunset at La Renaudière, 26 August 2007

The sunset panorama is actually two photos that I "stitched" together using software. I did this one in Photoshop Elements. Again, click the picture to enlarge it for the full effect.

From bad to worse, weatherwise

It's a good thing that I got out Tuesday afternoon for a nice walk in the vineyard with the dog and the camera. It started raining again Tuesday night and it was still raining yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon. Here it is Thursday morning, and... well, whadda ya know... it's raining.

Touraine grapes in the Renaudie vineyard, 21 August 2007

Callie had a very rainy birthday. In the morning, she and I headed out down the gravel road through the vineyard for our normal walk, but in a light drizzle. By the time we had gotten about a quarter of the way out (it's about a mile out to the end of the road), the rain really started coming down. So we had to turn back. The poor dog was antsy and a pain in the butt all morning, because she had so much pent-up energy.

Callie wading in and drinking out of the puddles
in the vineyard Tuesday afternoon

I had to fire up the Peugeot and go out yesterday morning. I had an appointment with our insurance agent, Mme Janvier, and I needed to go to the Ed supermarket to pick up some supplies. I spent a good 30 minutes talking to Mme Janvier.

One of the things we talked about was the weather, of course. Her office windows overlook the Cher down near the bridge in Saint-Aignan, and I could see the rain falling and speckling the surface of the river. « Les gens vont vraiment déprîmer cet hiver, parce qu'ils n'auront pas beaucoup vu le soleil cet été », Mme Janvier said. People are going to get really depressed this winter because they won't have had their time in the sun this summer. I'm sure she's right. Just thinking about winter is depressing at this point.

Callie the border collie, 21 August 2007.
She'd just been playing with her dog friend Lilli.

The French national news has been carrying big stories about the depressing weather and about the vacationers and tourist industry people who are having to suffer through this été pourri — rotten summer. Campers who went out to the coast in Brittany and farther down toward Bordeaux have been pulling up stakes early and heading back home. Sidewalk cafés near the beaches are just a collection of empty tables and chairs. Nobody is buying ice cream.

The movie theaters are full of people, evidently. And the people most enjoying this ducky summer are the ones in Paris and other big towns who sell... umbrellas. Parapluies. Pépins. Pébrocs. Foreign tourists interviewed for the French news shows swear they are still having a great time in Paris and that it is beautiful despite the rain. Since they've probably never been there before, they don't really know what they are talking about! If they could only see it when the sun's out!

More Renaudie grapes, probably Sauvignon Blanc

Yesterday Bruno of the Domaine de la Renaudie winery was out on his tractor spraying the grapes again. He's the one who told me last week that it was a good thing, on the day I saw him, that it wasn't raining. It was just gray and gloomy that day, and the last thing the grapes needed was more moisture. Tough luck, really, because these days, it's very wet and just as gloomy.

I assume Bruno was spraying the grapes with what is called the Bordeaux mixture (la bouillie Bordelaise), a fungicide/bactericide that is used to control rot. It's a combination of copper sulfate and hydrated lime, evidently, and you can see it as a blue powder on the ground and the grape leaves much of the season — except when the rain has washed it all away.

This morning's French weather forecast

For him to be out there spraying in the rain, Bruno must be desperately trying to save as much of his grape crop as possible. In Champagne, Beaujolais, and Alsace the harvest has already started. They are saying that the exceptionally warm weather we had last April gave the grapes a head start on the season, so they are ripe early this year. They are probably also trying to get them in before the rain ruins them completely.

Harvest dates are set by the AOC people. In other words, to get the Appellation Touraine, which is a guarantee of authenticity and quality, the grape-growers can't harvest until the "experts" give them the go-ahead. Bruno told me the vendanges wouldn't start before September 1 this year. Let's hope there's something left to harvest.

A zoomed shot looking out across the Cher to

a little housing development on the other side

Another news report said that even the tomatoes grown in hot houses are not doing well this summer. There isn't enough sun to warm things up, and the humidity penetrates everything. Lettuce, of all things, is doing poorly. Farmers are finding pests and diseases on the leaves that haven't been seen in years. Carrots are rotting in the ground.

Meanwhile, there are having their third severe heat wave of the summer in Greece, according to the news on France 2 TV. Temperatures there are over 100ºF (approaching 40ºC) these days. I think the same is true in the U.S. Southeast. Evelyn, our friend in Alabama, says in an e-mail that she was out yesterday and after having lunch with friends "the temp in my car read 114, yikes. Everyone is talking about the weather. It sucks the energy right out of you, a bit like yours which sucks your good spirit out I think." Evelyn is right about our weather, so I know she's right about hers.

Susan says in a comment that her garden in the Oakland Hills, San Francisco Bay Area, is a disaster zone like ours. "Our summer here in Oakland is pretty similar to Bellingham's," Susan wrote. "All but one of my tomatoes failed to set fruit, the pepper plant has exactly one pepper, and the cucumbers simply up and died." Susan, I didn't realize you were having that kind of summer there. Others have told me that the weather in the Seattle area (including Bellingham) has been dismal this summer too, but that's less surprising that hearing about yours (apologies, Seattle).

Clouds moving back over us on an August afternoon

Finally, Claude (who blogs at Blogging in Paris and in French at Vieux c'est mieux) is out in Normandy, about a three-hour drive north of Saint-Aignan, near the coast. Up there on the English Channel, she reported the other day, she has turned her heat on, or at least the radiator in her living room. It's that bad. The temperature in our house is holding at about 66ºF, and yesterday I kind of wanted to have a fire in the woodstove. Instead, I wrapped up in a blanket and took a nap in front of the TV.

More rain moving in

Another big wet-weather system is moving into the northwestern parts of France this morning. I just watched the weather forecast presented by Patrice Drevet on France 2 television's Télématin morning show.

Patrice shows us a front moving off the Atlantic and
over Brittany this morning. It looks wild and wet.
Saint-Aignan is in the hazy band more toward the interior.

Those 70 and 90 numbers are wind speeds. Those are kilometers, and 70 kph = 40 to 45 mph, while 90 kph is about 55 mph. It will be windy and wet in Brittany this morning — but it often is. It's too bad for all the Parisians (and others) who went to Brittany for their August vacations this so-called summer. And tomorrow, August 15, is a national holiday.

Wednesday's forecast is for rain and showers
over two-thirds of the country.

By tomorrow, the main area of rain will have moved through Saint-Aignan and will be sitting over Bordeaux, the Massif Central, Burgundy, and Champagne. But we'll still have showers and 40 mph winds here in the Loire Valley. So we expect a very rainy, windy evening and night, and that should continue into tomorrow morning.

Thursday looks like a blustery, damp day
nearly everywhere in France.

Voilà — that takes care of the greater part of this holiday week. I think Walt is going to try to mow the grass today, before the rain starts. I weeded a big section of the vegetable garden yesterday morning, hoping that by giving the bell pepper and eggplant plants some breathing room, they might start to produce some fruit. But the damp chilly rain coming in won't help them be more productive, that's for sure.

Puffy clouds in the afternoon, 13 August 2007

Yesterday was a nice day, and that made for about three in a row. It seems that's about as many as we can expect this summer. The woman named Jeanine that we had lunch with at the neighbors' house yesterday said she felt sure that September and October are going to be warm and sunny. She based that on the warm and sunny April we had. That's the local wisdom, I guess — warm in April, warm in September.

Of course, some people make fun of such old folk sayings. One parody of such predictions is: Beau temps en novembre, Noël en décembre. With that one, you can't really go wrong.

Early morning clouds, 14 August 2007,
show the change in the weather.

You can see that the weather has changed when you look at the two cloudscapes above. Yesterday's puffy clouds have given way to higher, hazier looking bands of clouds. That's the storm front coming in, pushing the warmer, nicer weather off the the southeast.

Callie in her bat-out-of-hell pose

Callie was kind of wild on her walk this morning. I think it's because I made her wait about an hour longer than she wanted before we went out. I slept in — I didn't get up until 7:30. I tried to take some pictures of her running like a maniac through the vineyard, but my camera wasn't fast enough.

Callie rolling in the tall grass

Just to show me she's still the boss, Callie ran ahead of me, found a puddle in a tractor rut, and dived in, splashing mud and brown water all over. Then she found some tall grass and rolled around in it just to make sure she got as messy as possible. That'll teach me to make her wait an hour longer than she'd like before going out for the morning walk. I had to give her a shower when we got home.

Ten pictures of Callie, among other things

An electrician, Christophe Jouanneau of the village of Pouillé, is coming in with a crew this morning to update the wiring in our kitchen. We are jumping feet-first into the 20th century — a vent fan unit over the stove, for example, and two sets of grounded outlets for our toaster, coffee maker, microwave, stand mixer, food processor, and espresso machine. Not to mention a grounded outlet for the big transformer that converts some of these appliances, American in origin and power needs (110V) , into something other than expensive doorstops here in the land of all-220V current.

Callie on the road in the vineyard, headed home
You can't really see her unless you click the picture to enlarge it.

So we are clearing out many of the above-named appliances for the day to give M. Jouanneau and his crew room to do their work. You never realize how much merde you have in a kitchen until you have to move it all out.

Callie likes to climb up on this pile of logs.

Doing this reminds me how the moving company that packed up our San Francisco house four+ years ago for our move to France put one guy to work in our kitchen there to wrap every dish, glass, and storage container in packing paper and stuff it all into moving boxes. He spent at least six hours doing that job. And that doesn't even account for moving the bigger things we are having to move out of the way today, which back then were either staying with the house or had been otherwise disposed of.

Showing some leg

I don't know if I mentioned that our favorite roofing contractor, Christian Lucas of Saint-Aignan, came over last Thursday and did several jobs up top that had needed doing for quite some time. I think Walt wrote about it.

Pretending to have seen something interesting in the distance

We had two leaks, which he fixed — well, we'll find out during the next good rains whether they are really fixed or not. Up front, there was the problem with the dormer structure right over the kitchen that had caused a big leak in the ceiling back in June, when we had an inch-and-a-half of rain in one 90-minute downpour.

Crouching

M. Lucas said that debris had formed a dam up there in the valley between the roof and the dormer roof. Walt knew that; he had managed to removed some of the the debris during the storm. On Thursday, Lucas removed many tiles from that section of the roof and cleaned off the galvanized metal flashing underneath. He said he filled a bucket half-full of leaves and twigs. I bet that had never been cleaned out in the 40 years since the house was built.

How's my profile?

These tile roofs are amazing. Lucas was able just to pull the tiles off, sweep under them, and put them back. On the back side of the house, we had an old vent pipe left over from the previous sewage system. Two or three roof tiles had been cut to make way for the pipe to stick up through the roof just above the gutter line. The pipe was tarred but the tar had disintegrated and water was leaking around it onto the wooden eaves underneath and running down the side of the house. Lucas just yanked out the pipe, removed the three cut tiles, and put three new ones in their place. No more leak.

Chewing on something found in the back yard

He similarly replaced a tile that had split; half of that one had just fallen down into the rain gutter. The tiles just hang there on their wooden slats, with no nails or glue or anything to hold them in place. It's weight and gravity that do the job. They just hang there, and a roof like this one will last about 100 years, as long as the wooden structure doesn't rot or a storm doesn't come rip the whole thing off.

Think I'll chew on this branch off the rose bush.
Damn the thorns.

The other job Christian Lucas did was sweep the fireplace chimney. An annual sweeping is a requirement of our homeowner's insurance. No sweep, no coverage. We plan to use the woodstove a lot more this winter for heating. Walt has been busy cutting wood for the last week or two, so we will have a good supply. I predict a cold winter.

Posing in the vineyard

So we are taking care of business. A dry, warm home will be a good thing when winter rolls in again. This is our fifth summer here, and it will of course be our fifth winter.

My work here is done.

It's been hot for a few days now, but a weather front moved in early this morning. There was a stiff, cool breeze for a couple of hours around 4:00 a.m., and now it is raining lightly. Looks like a nice week coming up, however. Yesterday was actually too hot.

Bat dog!

When Callie comes running toward me at full speed, her ears catch the wind just right and stand straight up, showing off her full earspan! She looks like a bat, don't you think? Bat dog.

Running like a bat out of hell

One of the reasons the poor dog looks so wild-eyed is that we've had a big moon low in the western sky the past three mornings, at sunrise. She's totally spooked by the moon.

The moon at sunrise over the Renaudie vineyard

Callie keeps looking over her shoulder as she runs and walks through the vineyard to see if that big white sphere is still there, hanging over her head. It's the same behavior you see in dogs when a hot-air balloon goes by overhead, except she doesn't stand and bark at it. It's as if she senses that barking at it wouldn't do any good.

Moonset at La Renaudière, 31 July 2007

Meanwhile, the grapes are looking better and better. We've had a little stretch of nice weather. The temperature hit 80ºF yesterday afternoon, though just barely. This morning it was about 60ºF at sunrise, with a nice breeze to prevent or dry up any dew. That will help prevent mildew from growing on the grapes as they ripen.

Nice clusters of reddening grapes

These are either Gamay or Pineau d'Aunis grapes, I think. The Domaine de la Renaudie people, our neighbors, also grow Cabernet Franc and Côt (aka Malbec) red grapes. Their white wine grapes are Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc.

The first blush of color

Harvest time in a normal year is mid-September, so the grapes have about six weeks to go. In 2003, it was so hot that the harvest took place before the end of August. We're not having that problem this year. Last year, 2006, I remember, it started raining in September just as the harvest began, and the winery people had to work really fast to make sure that the moiture didn't spoil the crop. They said they had never brought the grapes in so fast.

Afraid of her... er... my shadow

A few mornings ago on our walk, Callie and I enjoyed bright sunshine coming from a big sun that was very low in the sky. You know what that means: long shadows.

We weren't far from the house when I realized that Callie was acting kind of strange. She was obviously nervous about something but I couldn't see anything that might scare her. Then I realized she was spooked by my long, tall shadow.

Callie transfixed by my long tall shadow

To see if that was really what was going on, I stopped and started to rock my head from side to side to make the shadow move a little bit. Callie went wild barking at my — the shadow's — rocking head. Ouah, ouah, ouah, ouah ! she barked. (She barks with a distinct French accent.)

Callie barking at the rocking head

By the time we got a few hundred yards farther out in the vines, I think the silly dog had figured out what was going on. She had been avoiding my shadow and kept glancing at it nervously. I stopped again and started rocking my head from side to side. Instead of looking at the shadow head, she looked back at me to say "Oh, stop being foolish. Not that old trick again!"

Okay, I've got it now. You're just playing games with me.

We had a nice walk that morning. We cut across the vineyard, down a row of vines hanging heavy with grapes, and ended up on the paved road on the other side. We walked up the paved road to where it meets up with the gravel tractor path that leads back to the house. Callie turned toward home and looked back over her shoulder at me. « Allons-y. Rentrons à la maison. J'ai faim, » she seemed to be saying.

Let's go home!

Later in the day, Walt mowed part of the back yard. Callie used to be afraid of the lawnmower and would go inside when he started it up. She didn't like the noise.

Barking at the lawnmower

Now that's changed. Instead of running away from the mower, she runs after it, barking all the way. She also like to chase the wheelbarrow when we roll it across the yard. She is developing good barking skills.

Looking for a puppy?

I know two puppies that are looking for a home. No, not Callie — she's settled in here and we're keeping her.

Long-legged Callie on 19 July 2007 at La Renaudière

One of the pups is one of Callie's litter mates. He's a little male who will be five months old tomorrow (as will Callie), having been born on Feburary 22 at the Elevage du Berger de la Vallée des Géants in the hamlet called Ventuile near the village of Blomard and the town of Montmarault in the Allier department in central France. His father is Vince du Vent des Moissons and his mother is Ruby du Berger etc. And his name is Cody.

Bonjour. Je m'appelle Cody et je suis le frère de Callie.

If you want Cody, check the kennel's web site and contact the owner, Annick Vincent. Her e-mail address is on the site. I don't know what the purchase price is, but I'm sure Cody has had all his shots and medical checkups, and he is registered with the French kennel club as a pure-bred red Border Collie. Red and tan and white, I guess I should say.

Seeing Cody on Annick Vincent's web site made me want, briefly, to see about bringing him here to live with Callie. But then somebody (was it you, Tom?) said it's not a good idea to keep two pups from the same litter together. Why is that? Do they get too attached to each other? We plan to have Callie spayed in about a month's time, so there would be no danger of them having puppies.

And then having a second dog is not something we had ever really considered. It might be biting off more than we can chew. (Why does the chewing metaphor spring immediately to mind?)

Yesterday we learned that a friend of ours is looking for a new home for her puppy, a year-old shih-tzu & terrier cross who very much resembles the shih-tzu side of his family. Bentley is his name, and he is Callie's best dog friend. He's energetic and affectionate.

Bentley with Walt back in April

Our friend's personal and professional circumstances have changed radically since she adopted Bentley last year, and she now realizes she can't give him the attention he needs. If you or anybody you know would like to adopt Bentley, let me know and I'll put you in contact with our friend.