Nine lives?

I don't know about cats having nine lives, but Bertie seems to have at least two. He's the cat we “rescued” — got as a gift, I should say — from a departing English friend about a month ago. Yesterday we discovered a side of Bertie that we hadn't been aware of before.

In the middle of the afternoon, as the attic work crew was finishing up its work for the day and the week, somebody rang the bell down at the front gate. It was M., the woman from across the street. She and her husband, B., live up in Blois but have a weekend/summer house here in the hamlet.

Our hamlet (9 houses) on the edge of the Renaudière vineyard

M. is one of the neighbors who was clearly not pleased when we announced that we had adopted a cat. “Yet another cat in the neighborhood!” she exclaimed rather shrilly, I thought. “If you knew how many crottes” — that's French for poo or poop — “I have to dig out of my flower beds, you'd understand.”

The next day, she went so far as to bring us some crottes de chat, in a little tray, for our inspection. I assured her that Bertie did his crottes in a litter box in the garage. I know, because I clean it out daily. I didn't really need to see the poops that M. brought for us to admire, or commiserate over.

Peonies are in bloom in the back yard right now.

Another neighbor has at least two, and maybe three cats, you see. And those cats must be pooping in M.'s garden. It's not anything new, because the neighbor's cats have been around for the seven years we've lived here. A few days ago, when I mentioned to that particular neighbor, C., that some in the hamlet really don't like cats, she basically said « Tant pis ! » — Tough!

And she said, as I've heard her say before, « On est quand même à la campagne ici. » — we live out in the country, and everybody might as well get used to it. I think she's right. I'm sure the cats help keep down the rodent population.

The new stair is on the landing, next to the kitchen.

So M. was at the front gate yesterday. She's been a good friend to us, and it was a friendly visit. She wanted to get a first look at the attic work, I think. I invited her in to see the new stair, and then I invited her to walk up and see the room. She did, and she was surprised at how spacious the attic is. « C'est énorme ! », she said, « et très clair. Quel changement pour vous ! »

After looking around for a couple of minutes and chatting with her, I decided to bring up the subject of the cat. “Oh, he's something else! ” she said. “He sits on our window sill and watches us through the glass.” She laughed.

Notice that the old wallpaper is mostly gone now.
We'll have pictures of it as souvenirs.

“The cleaning lady says he comes right in the house with her when she arrives. The other day, she found the cat upstairs, sitting on a bed under a Velux window.” Another chuckle.

“The cleaning lady said she was afraid she might lock the cat in by accident when she finishes work, and she was worried about that,” M. went on. “I told her not to fret, because the cat's owners have the key. If the cat doesn't come home in the evening, they can come over and look for him — they have the key.” That's us. We do have their key, and they have ours.

Our friend Sue from California planted this row of irises
in our back yard when she visited in 2006.

I again reassured M. that Bertie is most likely not one of the cats pooping in her flowers. And I was glad to learn that Bertie has made some new friends in the hamlet. His secret life is no secret any more.

Pentecôte

When I was out walking the dog one afternoon last week, I saw our grapegrower-winemaker neighbor J-N Guerrier out working on his vines. He was at the other end of a long row of vines and was with another person that I didn't recognize from that distance.

Des pentecôtes — wild orchids — in a field near Saint-Aignan
sur-Cher. You can see our house off in the distance.

Callie and I turned off the gravel road and walked up the row towards J-N and the mystery person. It turned out to be an older lady who looked familiar but whom I hadn't met before. She was J-N's mother-in-law, it turned out. I could see a clear resemblance between her and her daughter C., J-N's wife.

These flowers are protected in certain parts of France,
but are plentiful here in Touraine.

I pointed out some pretty purple flowers growing in a field just at the edge of J-N's plot of vines, saying that I thought they were wild orchids. “Are they?” J-N's mother-in-law asked. “We've always called them « des pentecôtes »” — that would be Pentecost flowers in English. J-N's mother-in-law is probably in her 70s.

I don't know whether the word Pentecôte used as the name of a flower would be capitalized, or whether it would take a final S in the plural. Who knows?

A close-up, with Callie up ahead

In Christian tradition, La Pentecôte is a religious holiday that falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter Sunday. I assume that's approximately when these little orchids make their annual appearance in the fields all around Touraine, including these around the vineyards near Saint-Aignan.

I found the flowers listed by the name Pentecôte on the Belles Fleurs de France web site and also here and here.

It looks like spring...

...but it sure doesn't feel like it. The temperature this morning is cooler than chilly. We've had fires in the wood stove for three days running. Yesterday morning, we turned the boiler on to warm up the radiators.

A view of our yard in springtime — the car is under the carport
out front, and that's a plum tree with red leaves on the right.

We haven't had much rain, but it's been pretty cloudy and gray. And windy. In fact, the two plum trees out on the edge of the vineyard — the ones that blew down in February and were pulled back up by tractor — have blown down again. Those men wasted their time pulling and propping the fallen trees back up. I guess we made the right decision when we decided to let our trees lie where they fell.

The plum trees were blown over again by this week's winds,
which are ‘visible’ in the photo, if you know what I mean.

Yesterday the work crew didn't show up to do anything up in the attic. Nobody called to say why. If they don't show up today, we'll have to call Jacques the big boss and see what's going on. The work is so close to being finished that we don't want to to be delayed now. The only big job left to do is to lay down the pine floor.

A neighbor's beautiful tamarisk tree

One reason it was a pain that the crew didn't come yesterday was that we wanted to drive over to Romorantin, which is about 30 miles from Saint-Aignan, but one of us needed to stay here during work hours. So I drove over there by myself. Walt stayed with the dog and was ready to greet Coco and his helpers.

Another neighbor's house in the hamlet

We had friends over again ysterday evening. Our social schedule got busy again all of a sudden. K & J, who came by for apéritifs and finger food, are Americans who have bought a house just 5 or 6 miles from Saint-Aignan. They are getting ready to move permanently to France. We compared notes about contractors, the kind of work that needs doing, and the best places to buy building materials, appliances, and ... wine!

Columbine in bloom in our back garden

As you can see from the pictures in this post, it does look like spring at La Renaudière. I just wish it felt like it.

Foccacia and friends

Yesterday some people who live in Hawaii came by for a visit. They've been staying for a few days in a gîte rural — a vacation rental — about 10 miles from Saint-Aignan. In fact, they said this is at least the fourth time over the past decade that they've rented that same house and come to spend time in the Loire Valley.

Ann and Paul are people I met on an Internet forum focused on travel in France. They had seen this blog, because my posts on the forum include a link to it. We warned them that our house is under construction, but they understood because they've had major construction done at their house in years past.

That's the nice thing about having a good Internet connection and this blog. We meet a lot of people, and we've always had very good experiences. As you read this, you may realize that you are among the people we've met and enjoyed getting to know since 2005, thanks to our blogs.

Fougasse — foccacia bread

In honor of the visit, I made what is called in French a fougasse. In Italian, that's a foccacia. I was going to go up to the boulangerie in the vineyards and buy a fougasse, but I realized I had all the ingredients, so I thought I'd try to make one myself. Walt, who knows how to make dough for pizzas and pies, was here to advise me.

It turned out to be easy to do, and was delicious. You make a yeast dough with olive oil in it, as you would make pizza crust. It's easy if you have a heavy-duty stand mixer, which will do the mixing and blending for you. Or a bread machine. I found the recipe on... the Internet, of course.

Fougasse avec fromage, olives noires, et lardons

14 oz. flour (400 g)
1 pkg. baker's yeast (1 tsp.)
1 pinch sugar
3 Tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. salt
warm water as needed
grated cheese (Swiss, cheddar, or other)

Toppings (optional)
lardons (smoked bacon or ham)
pitted black olives
chopped sun-dried tomatoes

In a small blowl, mix the yeast and a pinch of sugar together with 3 Tbsp. of lukewarm water. Set it aside for 15 minutes in a warm place.

Put the flour and salt in the bowl of the mixer and add the olive oil. Using the dough hook attachment, start mixing it together slowly and add the yeasty water. Add more lukewarm water, a tablespoon or two at a time, as the mixer does its work, until the dough forms a ball. Continue mixing at fairly slow speed for 5 or 6 minutes, to knead the dough until is is smooth and elastic.

Put the ball of dough in a mixing bowl with a tablespoon or two of olive oil in the bottom. Turn the dough over so that it's oiled on all side. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set it in a warm place for two hours to let it rise.

Meanwhile, pit a cup or less of black olives (nice salty ones are best), cook about half a pound of chopped smoked bacon or ham in a skillet until just done, and grate about half a pound of Swiss cheese (Gruyère or Comté).

When the dough has finished rising (and it doesn't have to rise very much), take it out of the bowl and stretch it into shape on an oiled baking sheet or a silicon pad. It should be fairly thin — fougasse is a flat bread. Sprinkle the cooked bacon and pitted olives over all and press them down slightly to embed them in the dough. Set the dough aside, loosely covered, to rise again for 30 to 45 minutes.

Finally, drizzle some olive oil over all, sprinkle on some salt and pepper if you want, and put on the grated cheese. Bake the fougasse in a 400ºF/200ºC oven for 20 to 30 minutes, until it's as brown as you want it and the cheese is all melted.

Cut the bread into little squares and serve it just warm. It's good finger food.