Du brouillard givrant

The temperature stayed below zero all day yesterday, and it's still below zero right now. Zero in degrees Celsius, I mean. That's 32ºF. The fog was dense, and it was freezing on the trees and on other surfaces. Walt wanted to go to the market,
and even though the car was parked under the carport out front, it was iced over. I mean clear, smooth ice, not frost.
The frozen fog was hard to scrape off, so he just warmed up the car, turned on the front and rear defrosters,
and waited for it to melt. The trees above and below are across the street, in our neighbors' yard.

I've posted about freezing fog several times over the years. Click here to scroll through those posts and view photos, including this one from 2017.

The frozen fog looks like snow, but it's less damaging to trees and causes less inconvenience for humans. It can be beautiful, especially if the sun comes out while everything is still frozen.

News and views

Here are five photos of the Château d'Amboise from different points of view,

plus a few random comments about current events at our house in Saint-Aignan.

Walt got his Covid-19 booster shot yesterday afternoon. This morning he's feeling the side effects.

The most exciting thing that happened yesterday was the arrival of 10 “KN95” face masks that I ordered from Amazon (amazon.fr).

Natasha the sheltie, 5 years old next month, seems to be coping despite her lame leg.
I think the pain killers that the vet prescribed have made her happier. Surgery next week.

The temperature outside this morning is +21ºF. That's a hard freeze (minus 6ºC). Brrrr.

Yesterday I went to Intermarché, the supermarket on the other side of the river, and stocked up on groceries, especially vegetables — Brussels sprouts, broccoli, lettuce, celery, and carrots. Maybe a healthy diet will keep
us healthy.

Le chien, la maison, et les plantes

So Tasha will have knee surgery next Wednesday over in Tours (Saint-Avertin, actually). She suffered the torn knee ligament at about 5 p.m. on Wednesday.

We saw a new vet. He joined the staff just a few months ago. He's Dutch but lived for many years, he told me, in South Africa. Even though his French is good, he said he's pretty exhausted after speaking French all day at work. At the beginning of the consultation I mentioned that I am American, and English just burst forth.

From that point on, we spoke English together.

I'll get a fuller idea about what Tasha's post-surgery recovery regime will be like after I talk to the surgeon next week. I hope we'll get back to our daily walks in the vineyard before too long.

These first two photos are ones I took just a few days ago, on the spur of the moment. Bertie and Tasha were watching birds on the feeder we put out on the terrace railing in winter.

Here are two photos of our house and back yard from out in the vineyard. We've lost half a dozen trees over the past few years. We're hoping that the big Himalayan cedar and the linden won't die any time soon. The spruce tree that we call "the Christmas tree" will need to go next year or the year after.

The tree in the foreground in this picture is a plum tree that I planted more than a decade ago. It's going strong, but last spring's late frost and freezes killed off what was promising to be a bumper crop of little red plums.

This yellow jasmine that flowers in winter is a plant that CHM gave us five or six years ago. I transplanted it into a big pot and put it at the southwest corner of the house, where it gets good winter sunshine. I'm posting this photo because it's flowering right now and I want CHM to see it.

This is another plant that was a gift from a friend about a decade ago. It's in a big planter box that is also at the southwest corner of the house, and it seems to be thriving for now. The friend that gave it to us lived on the other side of the village, but now she's in an assisted living facility in Saint-Aignan. She'll be 92 years old in April.

Amboise : Leonardo

     Leonardo da Vinci (b.1452-d.1519) spent the last few years of his life in Amboise and died there
during the reign of the French king François 1er.

People gathered at the top of the Tour des Minimes to take in the views of the town and the Loire river —
the tower is a spiral carriageway designed to allow people on horseback or in horse-drawn carriages
to ride up to the top of the hill the château stands on.

     There's a statue of Leonardo on the banks of the Loire that looks like the photo on the right
when the river starts to flood, it did in December 2004.

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P.S. Bad news this morning. Natasha the sheltie has somehow injured one of her back legs. She's walking on three legs, which is making life hard for her and us in our three-story house. She doesn't seem to be in pain. We'll try to get her in to see a vet this morning. We don't know how she injured herself this way. It happened late yesterday afternoon.