Canicule ?

This is a set of macro photos that I took out in the vineyard a few days ago with my Canon SX700 HS camera. I've had it for more than two years now but I've hardly used it at all. Now I'm enjoying the photos it takes, including macro and long-zoom shots.

The weather we're having is exceptionally warm for the month of June. It's reminding me more and more of June 2003, when we first came to live here. We spent the first week in June up in Normandy, and it was even hot up there. I remember sitting in an outdoor café on the oceanfront in Etretat, on the Channel, in shorts and a T-shirt and not being cold. It was amazing.

That summer produced the Grande Canicule — the great heat wave — that lasted into August in France. In June and July, we were driving a rented Opel that had no air-conditioning. The house didn't have AC either — it still doesn't. We normally don't need AC. We haven't had another summer like 2003 since then.

I bought our little Peugeot 206 that summer, and drove it off the dealer's lot in early August. We still have it. For several weeks that August we would go for long afternoon drives with the dog just to run the AC and get some relief. Luckily, our dog Collette loved to go riding in the car.

The stone and brick houses around Saint-Aignan developed cracks in their walls because of the intense heat. Converted attic spaces — even whole houses, including ours — were like ovens. All over France, thousands — especially older people — died from heat exhaustion and dehydration. For weeks the high temperatures stayed near 40ºC, which is over 100ºF. Let's hope this summer won't be a repeat of that disaster.

Another pretty morning

Not so much today, because it's overcast. That means too that it is weirdly warm. We heard distant thunder overnight, but it stayed away and it's dry here this morning. Nothing is stirring. Meanwhile, here's the view from the back gate that my title refers to.

The pretty morning — spectacular really — was a few days ago (Sunday). I had gotten up at 5:00 and was out walking with Callie the collie by 7:15. I'm glad I got out early, because both the sky and the light were beautiful. By the way, Callie is 10 years old now.

Off in the distance, to the northwest, I spotted a couple of hot-air balloons. They were probably over the château de Chenonceau, which is about 15 miles from here. With my long zoom lens, I was able to get the photo below.

We seem to be having our summer right now. If this kind of weather continues without too many interruptions — rain delays, you might say — it will be amazing. Of course, we had pretty nice weather last year in July, August, and September. Maybe it's a pattern.

Yesterday Natasha, our tiny sheltie puppy, actually managed to walk down half a dozen steps on the steep wooden staircase that goes up to the loft. 'Tasha is 4 months old now.

What happened is that she started up the stairs, and then half way up she changed her mind. Without taking time to think about what she was doing and get scared, she turned around and walked back down. That was a first.

Saint-Aignan in the summer of 2003

June 13, 2003. I found a batch of photos I took on that day, which was our second day in the house where we've lived ever since. Then I thought to look through this blog and I found that I've posted about that day, with photos, several times in the past. We had arrived in France that June, and we had the bought the house, but we were waiting for our container load of furniture and other belongings to arrive. We didn't have even an estimated arrival date from the moving company. Here's a post from 2010 about that time.

Meanwhile, I also found a batch of photos I took a little later in 2003 down in Saint-Aignan. I want to post a few of them, because I think I have never put them on the blog before. We had never  heard of Saint-Aignan, we thought, when we came here in December 2002 to see if we could find a house to buy — or at least to see houses and see if there was anything we could afford or think we'd be happy living in. A real estate agent in Montrichard recommended Saint-Aignan to us. Years later, we realized we had driven through Saint-Aignan on a road trip we took all around France in 1989.

We drove over here from Amboise on a Tuesday morning in December 2003, and this is what we saw. Of course, that was in December, so the town didn't look exactly like what you see in these photos from six months later. In winter, Saint-Aignan can be damp, dark, and kind of gloomy, but we had enough experience of France to know it was the kind of town where we'd be happy to live to live someday.

We had no firm plan about leaving the U.S. at that point. We were just exploring. It was almost a lark, and certainly an adventure. We were lucky to find a cooperative and helpful real estate man, who seemed to understand what kind of house we were interested in. On that December day, we first saw the house we live in now. On paper, we would have rejected it as being too small.

Out of 15 or so houses around the area that we inspected, the one we've ended up living in ever since was the only one that really seemed to have potential, as well as being located in a desirable area: at the end of a dead end road, on the edge of a vineyard, with a big flat yard (not on a hillside), a hedge that gave good privacy, and only 2 or 3 miles from a good-sized town with shops, supermarkets, and services.

That summer of 2003 was quite an experience for two guys who had spent many years in San Francisco, where summer weather is windy, cold, and foggy. (Mark Twain said something like the coldest winter he had ever lived through was a month of August in San Francisco.) We had arrived in France in the year of the Canicule — "dog days", the great heat wave during which thousands of French people died exposure and dehydration — and we endured weeks and weeks of extreme heat. That summer, we were camping in our basically empty house, which of course had no air-conditioning (and still doesn't).

We went out and bought some vinyl outdoor furniture to use as a dining room set while we were waiting for our container to arrive from California by boat. We figured we'd use the outdoor furniture, well... outdoors, after we had real furniture in the house.

And we slept for weeks on the floor, on air mattresses that we bought at the local supermarket, covered in sheets that we borrowed from friends in Normandy. It was so hot that that summer that we feared we might have made a big mistake by buying a house in the Loire Valley. Here are some photos of the San Francisco house we had been living in but had sold.

Church photos...

I realized this morning that I took a lot of photos featuring the church in Saint-Aignan when I was in town Saturday morning. I'm going to post some of them today and over the course of the week, just for posterity.

I took this shot of the town's eastern riverfront from the island on the opposite bank of the Cher.

As usual, you can enlarge to photos to see more detail by clicking or tapping on them a time or two.

Looking up at the church tower from down in the streets of the old town

A view from the bridge of chimneys and church towers

From the east end of town there are good views of the church towers too.

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By the way, today, June 12, is the 14th anniversary of the first night we ever spent in this house, back in June 2003. It's hard to believe we are so close to having lived here as long as we did in San Francisco (from 1986 to 2003). We had arrived in Saint-Aignan on June 7 and spent five days in a rented gîte nearby while cleaning, arranging for the delivery of necessary appliances, and figuring out how we would "camp" in the house until our container full of furniture and other belongings arrived by boat and moving van from San Francisco in July or August. We bought air mattresses to sleep on and outdoor furniture to use as a dining room set. It was exciting, and fun.

House for sale, on river

I went into town again yesterday morning and took some photos. I took them with my third digital camera, a Canon SX700-HS, which I hadn't used in a while. Here are three photos I took along the riverfront in Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher. The first is a 19th century house (une maison bourgeoise is what it's called) for sale (à vendre).

According to this real estate site, the house has 220 square meters of living space (about 2500 sq. ft.), including five bedrooms. The photos on the web site make it look pretty attractive, but heating costs might be high. The asking price is €241,500, or say $275,000 U.S. You can see that the church is right behind it, and it's on the river road right in the center of the old town. (I'm just reporting — I have no stake in the house or its sale.)

Above and below are two photos of the river that I took from near the house that's for sale. One shows the bridge and the Sur le Pont restaurant to the northwest. The other shows the view to the southeast, where the river comes into Saint-Aignan.

As usual, you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them with your mouse, or manipulating them on the screen of your tablet.

The ghost snail

I've seen this snail three or four times over the past year or so. It looks like a ghost, I think. But it is not, and it is not an albino. It lives near a small water hole on the edge of the vineyard, near woods. Besides the day when there were two of them out there, it's the only one I've ever seen. I've read that the lifespan of a snail like this one is 3 years in the wild, but as long as 10 years in captivity.

It's the snail called the escargot de Bourgogne or « le gros blanc ». It's bigger than the snails we see mostly around here, which are called « petits gris » and are much more plentiful. Both species are edible. At 30 to 45 grams (1 to 1½ oz.), the Burgundy snail is two to three times bigger than its little cousin.

It's illegal in France to gather gros blancs snails during their reproductive cycle, from April through the end of June. They are protected and they are difficult to raise commercially, they say. Snails have been consumed by humans since prehistoric times, and they were a Roman specialty. Here in France, we can buy snails in cans or frozen, and we can also buy frozen garlic-parsley butter that is commonly called « beurre d'escargot ».

Stairs and rumbles

In the middle of the night, I heard a loud crash. It woke me from a very deep sleep. I sat up in bed and said OMG! I don't know if I was in the middle of a dream, but my immediate thought was: a dog, probably Callie, has fallen down the steep loft staircase. The house was pitch dark. I heard Walt say: "Thunder!"

Whew! Only thunder. It was a very loud rumbling sound, though. I guess I have stairs on my mind, because of the puppy's recent struggles with them. One day I'll have my own struggles with stairs, I think. Age, you know. (Walt posted photos of the lower staircase yesterday.)

 

Fact is, at age 10, Callie has been having trouble with the steep loft staircase for the last few months. Her problem is going up them, not coming back down. She's still doing it okay, but with some serious hesitation before starting up. Tasha has shown no sign of being willing to try to descend these stairs, while running up them is easy for her.

It's still raining lightly this morning, but it's not storming. They're telling us to expect torrid weather over the weekend.

Two dogs — better than one?

The dogs are really getting along very well. I think Walt is going to post about Natasha's latest exploits today, but I'm not sure — we don't often coordinate our blog posts.

So I thought I'd just post a couple of photos I snapped a couple of days ago as the two dogs took a break from chasing each other around the back yard. They're in the shade of the linden tree, which is in full flower and swarming with bees. Then they saw me taking the photos.

Some days I wonder whether it was a good idea to get a puppy this year. "What was I thinking?" is the phrase that keeps popping into my head. At other points, Natasha is so pretty and playful and, in fact, well-behaved, that I think we're going to be okay. The fact that Callie seems to agree helps.

Heat-seeking organisms

Yesterday's weather was downright chilly, especially in the morning. It was gusty all day, and the wind felt cold. We had some rain showers.

Last week when it was hot, I spotted this lizard on the south-facing wall of the house. He was up pretty high, seeking the heat of the sun, so this is a long-zoom image. On those rare days when it does get good and hot here, we see a lot of lizards, and Callie loves chasing them.

We can't grow good crops of sweet basil every year because the weather is just not hot enough in this northerly region. Walt has this planter full of basil seedlings started in the greenhouse, and a friend gave us a pot of Thai basil seedlings that she started. We will probably plant most or all of the basil in pots so that we can keep it in the greenhouse if the weather turns chilly or damp. Maybe that will work.

Life is just a bowl of...

You can finish that line.

Just on the north side of our yard, there's a strip of land that's planted in plum, cherry, apple, peach, and quince trees. There aren't all that many of any one kind. We've been know to go pick fruit over there when it's been obvious that nobody else was going to take any of it.

A few weeks ago, some people in a big silver Mercedes came and parked behind our back gate. We heard mowers and other trimming equipment running on the old orchard plot, which had previously been pretty much neglected.

I was out in the back yard when the people finished their work for the day and came back to their car. I talked to them. They turn out to be the daughter and son-in-law of the woman who owns the little orchard. She used to live in Saint-Aignan but now she's lived in Brittany for many years — and they do too.

This past weekend they were here again. They mowed and trimmed and picked cherries — now is the season. Again, I saw and talked to them. As they departed, they said they were going to drive back to Brittany the next morning.

Go pick all the cherries you want, they told me. Otherwise, the birds will get them all. Or strangers might come and pick them. We'd rather you have them. I thanked them profusely, and wished them bon voyage. Yesterday was the day. It was bright and sunny, so I went and picked a bucketful of cherries. I see another clafoutis in our immediate future.

Un ange passe

Ou bien un fantôme. I saw it on the white tile over our kitchen sink a couple of mornings ago.

When the weather is warm overnight, we leave windows open. We don't have screens. Interesting creatures come inside.

Do you think it's a moth? It has a wingspan of about one inch — less than three centimeters.

There's a shelf over the sink with halogen lighting under it. Makes for good batman-type shadows.

Clafoutis aux cerises

Yesterday morning on my walk with Callie the collie, I noticed a huge cherry tree that was heavy with big, red, sweet cherries (I tasted a few). I already knew the tree, which is on the edge of a vineyard parcel close to our house. I thought to myself that I ought to go back out there with a bag or basket later in the morning and pick some low-hanging fruit. Then it started raining.

Because it was raining, Walt decided not to go to the outdoor market in Saint-Aignan to get some local strawberries. Then the rain stopped, so off I went on foot with a plastic bag to get cherries. I picked a pound of them. There are still thousands of them on the tree, but most are so high up you'd need a ladder to get to them. Nobody else is picking any of the cherries, as far as I can tell.

So when nature gives you cherries, what do you do? You make a clafoutis [klah-foo-TEE]. It's one of the simplest and most delicious ways to eat them. You don't need to make or buy a crust. All you need is some eggs, flour, sugar, butter, and milk, to make a filling. You don't even need to pit the cherries, if you are just serving this to family or good friends (be sure to tell them that the cherries are unpitted!). Some people say leaving the pits in the cherries actually improves the taste of the clafoutis.

Above is the recipe in French. It comes from the book Cuisine pour toute l'année by Monique Maine, which was first published in the late 1960s and is a French kitchen standard. It's a paperback, and is also available as a Kindle e-book available on amazon.fr. I've translated and adapted the recipe below.

Clafoutis aux cerises

1 lb. cherries [500 g]
¾ cup flour [80 g]
⅔ cup sugar [125 g]
4 eggs
1 cup milk [250 ml]
¼ cup butter, melted [60 g]

Wash, de-stem, and (optionally) pit the cherries.

In a big bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, and eggs. Pour in the milk a little at a time, stirring well, and then add the melted butter, to make a fairly liquid batter (consistency of heavy cream).

Butter a baking dish or pie plate and spread the cherries over the bottom. Pour in the batter. Bake the clafoutis for about 40 minutes at 350ºF (180ºC).

Optionally, you can sprinkle a little sugar over the top of the clafoutis to make a crunchy topping. As you can see by comparing the photos above, the clafoutis will collapse slightly as it cools. Serve warm or cold.

Le chat du château

Back in mid-May when I spent a morning taking photos in and around Saint-Aignan before going shopping at the outdoor market, I saw a cat.

At first I didn't think it really was a cat. It was perfectly immobile, even when I walked up behind it on crunchy gravel. It's hard to sneak up on an animal or a person when you're making that much noise. The cat didn't move.

It must have been hunting, or at least watching some animal or movement. It was staring into the ivy growing up the front of one of the buildings on the château terrace. You can barely see it in the photo below.

I briefly thought what I was seeing might be some kind of lawn ornament. Then suddenly, but not hurriedly, the cat stood up and started walking toward me. It actually startled me. The cat seemed very tame and self-assured.

I thought about trying to pet the cat but then decided to leave it alone. Our cat Bertie has twice scratched strangers who've tried to pet him or pick him up.

The cat and I just continued our separate walks around the château and the terrace. I like to think that the cat lives in the château with the owner, Madame de la Roche-Aymon.

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Our internet connection seems stable this morning, for the first time in a week. My theory is that the phone company is working on the infrastructure, but the work only goes on during the week, not on the weekend. Because of all the flakiness, our wi-fi laser printer is completely discombobulated. We spent a few hours yesterday trying to get it working again, but no dice. It's frustrating but we'll eventually figure it out.

Four roses

Hot weather has come back, and long range predictions are for a hot summer here in France. We'll see.

Meanwhile, it's rose season here in Saint-Aignan. I've enjoyed photographing flowers over the past few weeks.

One reason I've enjoyed it is that I'm still trying to learn how to use the camera I took these with.

Some of these roses are in a neighbor's yard. The house sits unoccupied most of the time. The owner lives in the Paris area.

I'm glad to be able to post these photos, because we are having unusual problems with our internet connection. One minute it works, the next minute it doesn't. Whatever the phone company is doing to our DSL signal seems to have disabled the modem/router that we normally use. Luckily, I have an old router that seems to work a little better, but even with that one the signal comes and goes.