L'ancolie

We have a patch of garden where the flowers called ancolies or columbines come up every year. They're perennials. There are blue ones and pink ones.

I got three garden plots tilled up yesterday. For two of them it was the second tilling of the season. They are definitely ready for planting. The third plot was one that we had let fill in with weeds, and tilling it was like tilling ground that hadn't ever been tilled before. It was hard work, in other words, for both me and the machine, but I think that plot is ready for planting now too. There's one more plot to till, and it also has grown over, so it won't be easy. The ground here is hard, rocky clay.

Vegetable gardening is hard work. When the weather brings us a good garden and good crops, however, it's worth it.

La pivoine

Little round red buds become fluffy red flowers. The pivoines or peonies are blooming right now in the back yard.

Yesterday Walt hauled everything out of the utility room downstairs and vacuumed up all the dust and dog hair. Callie and I played with the garden hose — I was washing everything that needed washing (almost everything) and Callie was trying to bite the spray from the hose. The dog loves days like yesterday: warm, nearly hot, with blue skies and no wind.

Out of jail

When I look at the photos of the old window that I posted yesterday (scroll down), I get the impression that we were once in jail but now we are free. No more bars block our view. Somehow, the living room feels a lot bigger now.

Above: the view from the living room when I got up at six this morning

Right: before the curtains went back up yesterday afternoon

Left: the window seen from out on the terrace

Above: the front of the house with the new window (compare this "before" view)

Left: pendant les travaux

Right: the old windows being removed

And finally, above: a flash picture from this morning

No more panes

Here is the "before" shot. I won't be able to take the "after" shot until... well, after the work is done this morning. Finally, after 11 years, we are having this big French porte-fenêtre in the living room replaced.

Each panel of this window/door is 80 cm, so it's more than three meters wide. That's 10½ feet. The new window will be a sliding-glass affair without the divided lights (the little pains panes of glass). Then it will finally match all the other windows in our house — the ones we have had put in over the past 10 years.

The look will be totally different, and we'll get more light in the living room than we get now. The new window will be double-glazed and air-tight. The old one has almost no insulating qualities — it might as well be a screen door, for all the cold air it lets in — and it's a pain to keep clean. More tomorrow.