Tasha on a better day

Natasha and Walt were out playing with la ba-balle, as they say in French, yesterday morning. Tasha runs so fast and so happily when chasing the ball that she's just a blur. And then the accident happened. She's limping badly. We're having to carry her up and down the stairs. It's one of her front legs. I think we'll have to take her to the vet's this morning. The only recent good news here is that we got our new back gate, finally. Maybe you've seen photos of the old gate and the new gate on Walt's blog.

Natasha's injury is just one in a series of recent setbacks, and I'm sure the stress over everything going on back in my native North Carolina is contributing to my dark mood right now. Two weeks ago it was my laptop that failed me. The battery wouldn't recharge. I ended up taking it to a computer shop, where they replaced the laptop's power socket. That didn't really help. I ordered and received a new AC adapter/power supply for the computer and now the problem is gone. Finally.

Then my laptop screen developed a string of bad pixels. I half-way wonder if the guys at the computer shop didn't somehow cause the damage, because it wasn't there before I took the computer in for the power socket repair. The symptom is what you see in the blurry photo on the right: a long line of bluish, blackish dead pixels that now runs from the top to the bottom of the screen on the left side.

And then the dishwasher broke down. Water spurted out of the back of the machine in the middle of the night. The water dripped on some part of our electrical wiring, which caused the main circuit braker to trip. We were stumbling around in the dark in our underwear at two o'clock in the morning trying to mop up the flood and figure out what had happened. Since the dishwasher is 15 years old, we decided to replace it.

The new dishwasher will be delivered and installed on Thursday, if all goes as planned. I ordered a new screen for my laptop and will install it myself. After looking at some YouTube videos showing how to change out the screen, I've decided it won't be too hard to do. I have the appropriate screwdriver and other tools. I ordered the screen from a company in Canada that has a warehouse at Gatwick airport in the U.K. from which the screen has been shipped.

I wrote in comment that my sister and cousin who basically run the food bank in my home town in North Carolina were able to make the 12-mile trip to see how the place fared in the storm. The news was not good. When I talked to my sister, she and G had just arrived to find that the generator that was supposed to keep the food bank refrigerators and freezers running during and after the storm had failed.

All the food will have spoiled. It seems the water rose to such a high level that the generator was submerged and stopped running. We hung up the phone before J and G unlocked the door and went into the food bank building, so I don't know what condition they found things inside to be in. Latest reports say that the Morehead City got as much as 30 inches (762 mm) of rainfall and experienced winds as high as 112 mph (180 kph) over the weekend.

High muddy water

I've just spent some time on Facebook, and I'm seeing a lot of photos of the flooding in Carteret County, N.C., where I grew up and where my family still lives. It looks like most of the major roads are flooded, so people can't yet get out of their houses. Accuweather says it is still raining in Morehead City (it's midnight there right now).

Thanks to my nephew-in-law Mark, and to my cousins Ethel Marie and Thomas D., who are all far away from Carteret County but reposting photos they've found. There are also a lot of photos on the WRAL TV web site. WRAL is in Raleigh.

Not much news here. My mind is in Carolina.

No news

I hope that means "good news" but I'm not convinced in this case. About the only thing I know about the situation in Morehead City (North Carolina) right now is that they had measured 23 inches of rainfall — nearly 600 millimeters — by 8:30 p.m. on Friday. As I type this, it is midnight there (6 a.m. on Satruday here in Saint-Aignan). Accuweather says rains spawned by Hurricane Florence are continuing.

Other sketchy reports are that innumerable trees are down in Morehead (pop. 9,000) and the surrounding area. They are blocking streets and have pulled down electrical and telephone wires. I imagine the power is off through the whole county. There are more detailed reports from New Bern, a bigger town 35 miles northwest of Morehead, and the flooding there is impressive. I tried to get some news from the New Bern television site, only to learn that the station was flooded out and had to shut down.

I'm waiting for news from my sister and other friends and family members. Over at Atlantic Beach, across a mile-long bridge and causeway, the two oceanfront fishing piers that remain — there used to be many more piers along the 25-mile-long barrier island — have suffered significant damage. I'll just keep monitoring the situation as best I can on the internet, and hope for some news from people there soon.

The waiting game

Sorry, all I can think about right now is Hurricane Florence. The storm center — its eye — has still not crossed the North Carolina coast. In other words, the hurricane has stalled. Predictions are for at least 20 if not 40 inches of rainfall over the next day and a half. That's 500 to 1000 millimeters.

So far this morning, CNN has reported that the highest winds recorded have been gusts at 108 mph (174 kph) in the little settlement of Davis (a.k.a. Davis Shores, pop. 400) in the eastern part of Carteret County, N.C. That area is known locally as "Down East" where I come from (Morehead City), which is more water and marsh than dry land. I have old friends who live near Davis.

New Bern, N.C., and Atlantic Beach, Morehead City, and Davis Shores in Carteret County

An hour ago CNN also reported that 12½ inches (320 ml) of rain have already fallen in the resort town called Atlantic Beach, where I spent a good part of my childhood. Our house was about two miles from there by road and bridge. Atlantic Beach (pop. 1,500) is on the barrier island that protects Morehead City (pop. 9,000) from ocean waves. It has been extensively developed over the past 100 years. That's when the first bridge from Morehead to the Beach was built. My grandmother used to share memories of going to the Beach by sailing skiff.

Also, CNN has reported that a 10-foot (three-meter) storm surge has started flooding the old town of New Bern (pop. 30,000), which was the capital of North Carolina in colonial times. To give you some scale, New Bern is 35 miles northeast of Morehead City. CNN just reported that officials are especially concerned about the situation in New Bern and Morehead, which are located on very low-lying land. All the electricity in New Bern is out. No report about Morehead.

On the upper right corner of this map, you can see the settlements named Cedar Island, Portsmouth, and Ocracoke. There's a car ferry that runs several times a day (probably not right now!) from Cedar Island, which is land's end in Carteret County, over to Ocracoke and back. The boat ride takes about 2½ hours each way. Ocracoke (pop. 950) is accessible only by ferry. The old settlement of Portsmouth is now a ghost town and is part of a national park called the Cape Lookout National Seashore.

Que dire ?

The waiting is the most stressful part. With the arrival of Hurricane Florence tomorrow, the southern half of the North Carolina coast will likely experience winds, or at least gusts (rafales), of more than 100 mph (160 kph, maybe 200 kph).

The distance from Norfolk (Virginia) to Myrtle Beach (South Carolina) is more than 300 miles (500 km). My home town, Morehead City, is about half way between the two. The body of water just north of Morehead, enclosed by barrier islands called "the Outer Banks," is Pamlico Sound, which is an enormous estuary in the form of a shallow lagoon. The N.C. sounds stretch over more than 3,000 square miles (nearly 8,000 km²). For comparison, France's Loir-et-Cher département where we live has a surface area of 6,300 km².

The biggest danger now is the storm surge, I believe. Carteret County, in which Morehead City is the largest town, has a total area of 1,341 square miles (3,470 km²), of which 506 square miles (1,310 km²) is land and 834 square miles (2,160 km²) — 62% — is water. Some of my ancestors came to live here more than 300 years ago.

Hyperventilating

That's how commenter Emm on this blog describes the news and weather coverage by the media in North Carolina at this point. Hurricane Florence, which threatens to bring winds up to 150 mph (240 kph) or even higher, is supposed to pass across (or stall near) the Carolina coast 36 to 48 hours from now. You never know with these storms. They're erratic.

I'm trying not to hyperventilate. My sister, her daughter and son-in-law, and their three young daughters live in Carteret County, NC, just a kilometer or two from the shore and surrounded by tall, tall pine trees. I also have innumerable friends and cousins who live in Carteret County.

Some are leaving before the storm comes. Some are boarding up their houses and staying. My sister and our cousin told me yesterday that they are staying put, partly because they are key volunteers at the local food bank, which hands out groceries to people who qualify as needy. Those people will need assistance in the aftermath of the storm. The population of Carteret County is about 70,000. Little or none of the county's so-called land is more than 20 feet above sea level.

Forecasts are predicting Florence's "landfall" will happen somewhere along a 100-mile (160 km) section of coastline that includes the big towns of Wilmington and Jacksonville, as well as the smaller towns of Swansboro, Newport, Morehead City and Beaufort to the north. Nobody knows where the eye of the storm, with the strongest winds, will end coming ashore. All of the N.C. coast is made up of strips of sand and dunes called "barrier islands," which are not really dry land but exposed sandbars with salt marshes lying behind them, and then the mainland. People have built hundreds or thousands of houses on those sandbars.

"Biblical rains" are predicted across the state (pop. 10 million), so flooding rivers and streams are at least as big a danger as high, damaging winds, especially inland. And then there's the predicted "storm surge," as hurricane-force winds north of the storm's eye push ocean waters onto the low-lying coast. Okay, I'm hyperventilating despite myself.

Zooming in on the pickers

A few days ago, two vineyard workers drove by, one at the wheel of a grape harvester and the other driving a tractor pulling a trailer. They left a few minutes later with the trailer full of white wine grapes. I assumed the grapes were Chardonnay, which are usually harvested before Sauvignon Blanc or Chenin Blanc grapes. But yesterday I went and looked. I saw many bunches of beautiful grapes up and down rows of Chardonnay vines. So I'm mystified. Why would they leave so many grapes behind?

A day or two later, we saw several cars and vans drive into the vineyard. And then we saw people picking grapes by hand. I know there is one grower, a man who doesn't make wine himself (at least not for sale), but who sells his grapes to a big wine company, who brings in crews to hand-pick grapes. This is his crew.

I went up into the loft and took some photos from a skylight window, where we have a "panoramic" view of the vineyard behind our house. I have a camera with a long zoom.

So here are three photos of the crew at three different zoom levels. Well, it's just one photo, actually, cropped and resized at different levels. The crew of vendangeurs worked for just one day and is gone now, but yesterday the two guys on the harvester and the tractor pulling the trailer came back. They work for a different grower. And they left with another trailer load of white wine grapes. Maybe they got in the rest of the Chardonnay. I'll go out and look this afternoon when I take my walk with Natasha.

Okra gumbo with shrimp and sausages

 

I bought a lot of fresh okra and three big bags of frozen shrimp this summer when we went to the Asian foods market up in Blois. Louisiana gumbo came to mind. I finally got around to making it over the weekend. I used okra that I blanched and stored in the freezer. I peeled and deveined the shrimp.

I found a recipe on the Epicurious web site that I liked because it didn't call for pounds and pounds of shrimp and sausages. It didn't make gallons and gallons of gumbo, which is a spicy soup or stew served with steamed rice. We had some riz complet de Camargue brown rice that we thought would be good with it, and it was.

In the freezer, I also found a liter of turkey broth, left over from poaching a turkey last Christmas. Perfect. We have plenty of Louisiana hot sauce that I've brought back from the U.S. on recent trips. We also have hot peppers — habenero, serrano, and cayenne — that we grew last summer and dried in the dehydrator.

The base of Louisiana gumbo is a roux — flour cooked in vegetable oil — which you can make as light or dark as you want. I made a fairly dark brown roux for this one. The flavor base is the what they call "the trinity" in Creole and Cajun cooking — onion, bell peppers, and celery (céleri-branches) diced up and cooked first in the roux and then in the stew.

Of course, I had to substitute locally available ingredients for the authentic Louisiana ingredients, but that's okay. For example, I couldn't get what they call "andouille" smoked sausages here in Saint-Aignan — French andouille is another thing entirely —  but I could get both plain saucisses de Toulouse and smoked saucisses de Montbéliard.

A geeky rant about computers and customer service

I've been having a lot of trouble with my laptop computer for two or three weeks now. It has been time-consuming and frustrating. It's actually not the computer itself — it works just fine. The trouble has to do with getting the battery re-charged. Except for that issue, I like the laptop a lot. I thought I might have to buy a new one from Amazon in the U.K., and that was going to cost me six or seven hundred euros. Or I could make the trip to the U.S. to buy a new one over there

For some reason, the cord that runs from the power block to the computer was loose in the socket in the side of the computer. That's been the case for months. Suddenly the laptop screen would go dark, and I'd realize that the battery was almost completely discharged. If I jiggled the cord in the socket, I could get it working again. But it wasn't making a good, steady contact, so it kept coming loose again. I dreaded seeing the screen go dark while I was working on the computer, writing a blog post or doing whatever.

This is a laptop that I bought in the U.S. about 18 months ago. I bought it there rather than here in France for two reasons: computers are considerably less expensive in the States than in France, and the U.S. laptop comes with an American keyboard layout. I'm not ready to learn a new keyboard layout. I learned the French one many years ago, back when we used not computers but little manual typewriters. I was living in Paris.

After three years typing on a French typewriter, when I went back to the U.S. in 1982 I had to re-learn the U.S keyboard. It took a while, and it was frustrating. In January 1983, I went to work with my friend CHM in Washington DC. We prepared the French translation of a magazine published by the U.S. government for readers in French-speaking Africa. We edited and prepared the articles on computer terminals that had the American keyboard. Typing was what I did for a living (along with writing and editing).

I won't go into all the differences between French and American keyboards, but they are just different enough that it's complicated to switch from one to the other if you are a touch typist (and even if you're not). Are you aware that every country has it's own keyboard layout? The American and British keyboards have just minor differences in key placement. The French Canadian and the French French keyboards are even more different from each other. (And so on. Compared to the American keyboard, the French keyboard has the A key where the Q key is, and vice-versa. Same with the W and the Z. The M and the comma are indifferent positions. You have to shift to type numbers or a period. And so on. Using a French keyboard can drive you batty for months, until you get used to it.)

Anyway, because the laptop I use to "author" this blog is an American model, it has no warranty in France. And parts for it are not easy to find. I opened up the laptop a couple of weeks ago and examined the connector that runs between the external socket and the laptop's internal battery. It turned out to be a six-inch-long cable with the socket on one end of it and a plug on the other. (Photo on left with teaspoon for scale.)

I wrote down the part number of the little cable and started searching for a replacement cable on line. I couldn't find one in France. I found one on Amazon.com in the U.S. but when I tried to order it the site informed me that it couldn't be shipped to an address outside the U.S. I found one on E-bay but then found out that the seller was inactive because he or she was on vacation (it was an American). Finally, I found one available from a company in Bordeaux, and I ordered it. It came the next day. But it was the wrong cable, with a different part number.

Finally, I took the laptop to the local computer store, a small business called Aidicom. There, I attempted to explain the situation. The young clerk immediately started lecturing me about everything I was doing wrong. French people are like that when it comes to customer service. "The customer is always wrong" is their attitude. He told me the power supply I was using was not the right one. It was a 45-watt unit, and a laptop like mine needed a 65-watt charger. He was wrong about that, by the way. And then he said it was a really bad idea to leave the charger plugged in all the time. It needed to be unplugged every time the laptop was idle.

The man seemed determined not to listen to my explanation of the problem I was having until I rudely cut him off and almost shouted at him. It told him that none of what he said had anything to do with the problem. It was just a loose connection. He backed off and said he would try to find the defective part for me. Nearly a week later, he called me and said he couldn't find it. I went back over the computer store and told him I had found the cable on the website of a company in Bordeaux. I didn't tell him I had already ordered it but had received the wrong cable from that company.

Another week went by. I went back to the computer store. He said the part had been ordered. When I had ordered it, the package came in just 24 hours. I'm not sure why it took a week for the Bordeaux company to send the cable to Aidicom. Meanwhile I kept having to jiggle and tinker with the power cord on the laptop to keep it charging the battery. Sometimes I was convinced it was not ever going to work again, unless I got the replacement connector cable. But each time, after jiggling the cord for half an hour or so it would suddenly connect and I'd be back in business. I just tried to be careful not to touch the cord so that it would stay connected.

Finally, after two weeks of all this, the man at Aidicom called and said the part had arrived. I took the computer over there and left it for a few hours. A technician installed the new cable (I could have done it myself, but never mind...) and wonder of wonders, it worked. Of course, Aidicom charged me 55 euros for the repair, when the cable cost only 15 euros according to the Bordeaux company's web site. Anyway, until I saw it, I wasn't convinced it ever would. Two days later it's still working fine. I haven't yet put the 20 or 25 screws back into the laptop's back plate so that it's all back to normal. I'll try to do that this morning. Wish me luck.

Photos du chat noir

Yesterday afternoon I had my camera with me when I came back from the walk with Tasha. Bert the black cat was lying on the the greenhouse floor, basking in the warm sunshine. He followed us into the utility room and sat down in the sunshine while I was changing out of my walking shoes. Bert is 12 years old, and he's lived with us for more than 8 years now.

It's really hard to take photos of a cat, and it's even harder to take photos of a black cat. Cats aren't good at posing. If they do pose, it's often in a place that's too dark for a good picture, or they're in bright sunlight, and the photos come out too contrasty. Bert (he was named by the British couple who left him with us when they moved from Saint-Aignan back to the U.K.) is an outdoor cat who's a good hunter. He used to fight with other cats in the hamlet, but those days seem to be over. He retains scars from his battling days. Both the upper fang and lower fang are missing from one side of his jaw, for example.

We told our neighbor, whose daughter has been visiting from Bordeaux, that we had scheduled a week-long trip for the end of October, and we hoped she could take care of Bertie for us during that time. The daughter chimed in, saying that wouldn't be any problem because her mother is already taking care of Bert, who's been spending a lot of the day in her house recently. The neighbor, C, feeds Bertie, so of course he feels welcome over there.

Walt saw this last photo on my screen yesterday and said he thought it made Bert look pretty mean. We know that he's not mean or aggressive, at least not with us. But when you point the camera at him for a closeup, he lifts up his head and comes toward the lens. I think he's just curious about it. And that's why he looks like this.

Okra and tomatoes

Okra are called gombos in French. It's an African word. That's where we get the term "gumbo" as in the Louisiana specialty dish. Okra is an ingredient — a green vegetable — that also acts as a thickener in the chicken, sausage, or seafood stew that is gumbo, as well as adding good taste.

In other places in the U.S. South, people like okra just cooked with tomatoes. The flavors of these two vegetables complement each other, and while the okra helps thicken the stewed tomatoes, the acidic nature of the tomato juice improves the texture of the okra. Add onions, garlic, herbs, and maybe some bacon, and you have a great vegetable dish. It's good served with grains like rice, couscous, polenta, or millet.

I can't find, or never have found, fresh or frozen okra in the supermarkets or open-air markets in Saint-Aignan. But there are two stores up in Blois, which has a significant population of fairly recent immigrants from places including Africa and India, that normally have some in their produce departments. Once I even found frozen okra, which is almost always available in supermarkets in the U.S. South. I was surprised the one time I found frozen okra in France, in an Asian supermarket.

When I can buy fresh okra, several times a year, I usually freeze a good supply of it for future meals. First you have to blanch it in boiling water, as you do with nearly all vegetables you want to store in the freezer. You can trim up the okra pods and then cut them into bite-size pieces before putting them in the freezer if you want to. The ones pictured on the left are some I blanched and froze this summer.

I prefer to leave the pods whole, though. I just cut off the top of the stem end of each pod, and then freeze them on trays so that they are separate and remain that way after freezing. The you can pack them in plastic bags and take out just the quantity you need or want when you decide to cook some, without having to thaw a large quantity.

That's what I did the other day. I took a dozen or so okra pods out of the freezer. I sauteed a few cut-up tomatoes from the garden and sauteed them with some onion in olive oil. Then I added some fresh tomato sauce and the frozen okra pods, which were basically cooked before freezing, and let all that simmer on the stove for a few minutes. Meanwhile, we cooked up a batch of millet (also available in the stores in Blois) and grilled a couple of pork chops for lunch. If I can do it, you can do it.

Not plump enough?

They must be kidding. I think "plump" would be translated as charnu, meaning "fleshy." Or juteux, meaning "juicy." These photos I took yesterday afternoon in the vineyard parcels on the north and east side of our house definitely show plump grapes.

Only one small section of vines around our house has been harvested so far. These were still on the vine late yesterday afternoon. It was very warm — almost hot — and muggy when Tasha and I went out.

And these too were still on display. I think they are Sauvignon Rose (a.k.a. Sauvignon Gris) grapes. They a not a widely grown variety. I'm sure their juice and skins go into rosé wines, still or sparkling. I anticipate that more grapes will be harvested today.

These red wine grapes grow in the easternmost section of the Renaudie vineyard, down the hill from our house. They look plump as well. Can't you almost taste them?

This is what our "hamlet in the vines" looked like late yesterday afternoon, looking toward the northeast from out in the vineyard. Our house is the one with the brown roof under that big blob of a white cloud. Our neighbors' houses are on the right. We're having apéros this evening with the two women who each own one of those houses.

« Vendanges 2018 : Pas de précipitation ! »

It has been very dry in this part of the Loire Valley since mid-July. We've had hardly any rain. On August 29, a week ago, some rain fell, but we got only a few sprinkles in the Saint-Aignan area. West of us, that day saw from half to three-quarters of an inch of rainfall. But not here.

As a result, the grape harvest has been delayed here in the Touraine and Touraine-Chenonceau grape-growing area, as well as in the Cheverny and Vendômois wine zones north of us. Last weekend, our regional newspaper, La Nouvelle République (link), announced the decision to wait another week or so in the headline that I borrowed as the title of this post. It's a pun (un jeu de mots) on the word précipitation, which means both "rainfall" and "haste." There's no hurry to get the grapes in.

It's been so dry that the grapes haven't ripened as much as they should have. The varietal that has been especially affected by drought is Sauvignon Blanc, which is the backbone of the wine business here in the Val de Cher. Experts aren't sure the Sauvignon grapes contain enough juice at this point to make for a good harvest. (A confession: I've been tasting a few grapes on my morning walks with Tasha, and they seem sweet and juicy to me.)

The grapes are healthy, and the weather is predicted to stay dry, so a few more days on the vines can only improve them. Météociel has no rain in our forecast for the next 10 days. The grapes are machine-harvested, not hand-picked, so the process can go pretty fast once it begins. To the west of us, the harvest has already begun. It looks like 2018 will be a banner year for grapes in many parts of France.

Une page se tourne

I mentioned a few days ago that our friends and part-time neighbors M and B — the ones who have the house right across the street from ours but whose résidence principale is up in Blois — appeared to have left to go spend autumn, winter, and spring up there. I should have known they'd soon be back, because M didn't come over to tell us they were leaving, as she normally does.

We saw them arrive on Sunday morning. Then they went out in the car again at lunchtime, leaving the shutters on their street-side open. That meant they'd be back before evening. They were probably going out to lunch with one of M's two sisters who live here in the Saint-Aignan area. M grew up here, over in Noyers, as did her seven sisters and brothers. She's in her mid-80s now, but you'd never know it from the way she looks, not to mention the clear mind and the energy she has.

B is M's husband. They've been married for 63 years. We've known them since our first days here back in 2003. They've included us in many gatherings of their friends and family — they have seven children and 15 or 20 of grandchildren, as well a some great-grandchildren now. B is a few years older than M, and he has been in declining health for the past 4 or 5 years. He has Alzheimer's disease, I believe. He's fairly deaf and he's blind in one eye. But he always has a big smile when he sees us, and a strong handshake. He born the same year as my mother, who passed away six months ago.

Well, yesterday morning M came over and rang the bell at our front gate. I went down to talk to her. She brought us a big bowl of nectarines from one of their trees. Elles ne sont pas très belles, she said of the nectarines, but they'll be good for making jam or a pie. We think bringing the fruit was just a pretext for M to come over and say good-bye to us.

We're going back to Blois today, M said, and I don't know when we'll be back. We're giving our car to one of our sons-in-law, she continued. If we decide to come back to Saint-Aignan, one of our daughters will have to drive us down here. Walt and I already knew about their plans for the car, but I thought M and B intended to buy a smaller car that they'd be able to drive down here once in a while. No, M said, when I mentioned it. B is giving up driving for good. We've been pushing the limits for a while now, M said. For the past couple of years, she added, I've been thinking that B shouldn't be behind the wheel, given his age and his poor health. It's just too dangerous — ce n'est pas très prudent

So we've made the decision. We're turning the page — une page se tourne — and I don't know if we'll ever come here to spend more than a few hours again... if one of our daughters can drive us. M herself doesn't drive.

I told M this was hard news for us to hear. We'll miss them. And I told her we'd come see them in Blois from time to time. I'll call you this fall, M said, and have you and Walt come for lunch one day. We'll all stay in touch. This is a sad moment for us — but it's especially sad for M, of course. She and B bought their "house in the country" in 1970, so they've spent many happy summers here in Saint-Aignan.

Meanwhile, there are only six of us old-timers left in the neighborhood. There are nine houses. Two owners come and spend a few days or even weeks here once in a while. However, the "hamlet" is starting to feel lonely. One neighbor lost his wife to cancer a couple of years ago, and he's not doing at all well either. Several other neighbors have passed on since we came to live here fifteen years ago.

Some young people have bought a house three doors down from ours, but we don't know them at all. Our other three full-time neighbors are all older than I am — and I'll be 70 on my next birthday. Walt and I think we're going to stay here for the next decade or longer, but who knows if I'll still be able to manage the stairs in a three-story house 10 years from now, or if we'll be able to take care of the yard and garden at that point.

Right now it's time for my walk in the vineyard with Tasha.

Tomates confites = slow-roasted tomatoes

Here's this year's version of a favorite recipe. It's called tomates confites in French, and there really isn't a good English translation of that term. The closest equivalent would be "slow-roasted tomatoes," I think. This is a recipe for cooking tomatoes that you eat soon after they're done. It's not a method of preserving tomatoes for wintertime enjoyment.

Some of the best producers in our 2018 vegetable garden have been been tomato plants that give us little oblong fruits that are fleshy with not too many seeds. They're a lot bigger than cherry tomatoes and not so juicy. We think they are called "Juliettes" and this year they are exclusively volunteers. Walt didn't plant any Juliettes in the spring — they just came up on their own from seeds that were either left in the ground or in compost that we spread on the garden plot before tilling.

To make tomatoes confites the first thing you do is to cut small tomatoes in half or, if you have larger tomatoes, into quarters or wedges. De-seed them if you want to. These tomatoes were small enough to just be cut in half. I cut the hard cores out of some of them, but on some I didn't need to bother.

Once the tomatoes are cut up, sprinkle them with salt, pepper, garlic, and herbs like thyme, oregano, or basil. Optionally, add a good pinch of sugar. I used dried thyme and dried oregano leaves to flavor these. Then pour on some olive or other vegetable oil and toss the tomato pieces well. Let them marinate for an hour or two, or even longer.

Next, arrange the marinated tomatoes on baking sheets lined with silicone baking pads or parchment paper (papier de cuisson). Put them in a slow oven (about 95ºC — that's 200ºF) and let them cook for about three hours. The tomatoes will wrinkle and dry out just a little bit, but stay tender and moist.

Slow-roasted tomatoes are good in salads, of course, or cooked further in soups or stews the way you might use dehydrated or sun-dried tomatoes. The process of making tomates confites is a lot like preparing and drying tomatoes in the oven or a dehydrator, except that the roasted tomatoes are seasoned and marinated in oil before cooking. They're almost like candy but really only slightly sweet.

Scènes de la vie estivale

After a beautiful, sunny, not-too-windy summer during which we saw hardly any hot-air balloons (montgolfières) at all, we've now seen this one three times in just a week. It's a balloon we were used to seeing float by for the last four or five years. Walt noticed it yesterday morning when he was out walking with Tasha, and then I was able to get this long-zoom photo of it from a window.

There was no sign of vendanges (the grape harvest) starting up yesterday. The weather was beautiful, and the grapes look ripe, but I haven't seen any news about a decision as to when harvesting can begin. The autorités départementales up in Blois decide that by publishing a decree giving the vignerons the go-ahead.

This is the northeast corner of the Renaudière vineyard, just a few steps from our house. It's on a steep slope and bordered by woods. Tasha and I walk down there several times a week, and we see chevreuils (roe deer) there fairly often. This year I've seen a strikingly deep-rust-red-colored chevreuil three or four times, but never when I had my camera with me. Walt says he's seen a pair of chevreuils, a buck and a doe, several times this summer, but again, no camera in hand on those occasions.

Bonjour septembre

Walt just told me that in 2017, the first grapes in the Renaudière vineyard, where we live, were harvested on September 1. They were Chardonnay grapes, which seem always to be the first to be taken in. We'll see what happens today — or next week.

The neighbors' view of our house from their yard, with splashes of color

A view of the neighbors' house, taken in their yard — they've gone back to Blois for the winter

Tomatoes in our garden, many of which Walt has now harvested and made into sauce and paste