Saignées

The word saignée (blood letting, as in medieval medicine) is what the plumbers and electricians called the channels I cut in the stone walls of this house to hide their cables and pipes in two years ago. I used this huge grinder with a blade the size of my big table saw at home to run kerfs on both sides of the channels, a process both terrifying and horrendously dusty. Then I chipped the material out between the kerfs with the Hilti 3-in-one, drill/hammer drill/ light jackhammer. I still remember naively going around right after we bought this house asking people, how the heck do they bury wires in stone walls?

This morning as I flung open the kitchen shutters on the south (river) side, I noticed saignées in the sky. There must have been several dozen jet takeoffs. in the south, so that can only mean Toulouse, some 140 km away. They are so pink in the sunrise, could they have been angels instead? I checked it out with telephoto:



Now, an hour later, the blue sky is starting to become overcast as dozens more planes take off. It's unimaginable how many complex reasons and motivations lie behind all the trips being taken by all the passengers. Tonight, Robert will take Alix to the Orly in Paris and she will fly to Los Angeles to become an American girl. She has been unhappy living with her mother's mother and will now go live with her father's parents. Eleanor, the older daughter, will remain in Paris and the youngest, Dorian, will live in Libos with Robert, still in exile from his house and shop about 20 minutes distance in Montcabrier.

Pour qui sonner le glas ?

The bell in the 13th century church rings the hour and half hour starting with 7 am. Also, just after 7 am, there is usually a lot of additional bell ringing. Right now, they are tolling. It's a mournful sound of course since it means somebody has died. All the French people know the Hemingway title, For Whom the Bell Tolls. But when you hear the glas, that is the obvious question. In Albas, they post cards, carnets, with black borders notifying the public that the community is one short. Such carnets noirs are pasted onto the abutments of the Albas bridge. I'll look at the mairie later to see if they have the carnet noir custom in Castelfranc too.

Speed square

In one of my posts, I happened to mention in passing that I could not find a particular tool here in France, namely a speed square. I picked up a fancy French try square with all kinds of complex holes at distances marked in metric. My friend Bruce, in a generous gesture of infinite complicité, has sent me one, unasked. It arrived here by mail: $28 in postage! Not just the familiar small speed square, but in addition, a great huge whopper that you could scare off a grizzly with.



I was raised on more delicate combination squares which slide and allow you to mark lines parallel to edges of boards. In fact, I held the combination square in distain until watching wily Rick, self-proclaimed red neck carpenter, day after day, doing new and wonderful things with his speed square. Because of the web of metal, you get excellent purchase on this square as a guide for skill saw cuts or for pushing things into flush. On the other hand, the point is great for dislodging dirt and ice from the inside corner of a stud wall. When dropped, the speed square will not go out of square like a combination square. You can hit it with a hammer in case of desperation.

It stores nicely in the pocket of a tool pouch. Whipping it out by its rim was a habit hard to break.



Thanks a lot Bruce.

Windmills

I've had windmills on my mind. Partly because I'm following the plight of a group neighbors opposing a proposed group of 400 foot high, politically correct windmills in the Kingdom. A Cervantes-esque battle if there ever was one. Wind power has become such a sacred cow, no radioactive waste, no global warming, no mountain top removal. I find them ominous and disturbing, huge presences revolving ominiously. They look industrial and disfigure the ghostly sacred ridges of the Corbières. Unlike the ones that were still in use in Illinois when I was little, whipping around briskly, pumping a little water for a few cattle and sheep. From the top of one of these small ones, you could still probably see ten miles or so. The new ones are probably 400 feet high and from my sister's house in Danville, Illinois you can see many dozens of them, if not a hundred. She thinks they make the landscape she loves into a industrial hell. Marvin, my brother-in-law thinks they are great.

Who are the Quixotes and who are the Sancho Panzas these days, anyhow.

Furnishing

On the way to Cahors, we pulled off the road and had a time out so that Mrs Snoutsworthy could tell me not to talk so much about the woes of the world. A dog magically appeared from the other side of this balustrade.



We put a down payment on click-clack flooring that won't be delivered for three weeks, then pushed on to Fontanes to collect Kim, Denis, and little Daisy and go to Montauban to the Troc, a national chain of antique-junk consignment stores. We're in the market for a couch, a couple armoires, who knows what else. I made some ignorant remark about how ugly Montauban is, so Kim took us for a stroll around the beautiful old part of town, far from the sprawling shopping malls.



Nobody else seemed to notice the amazing garden laid out in terraces above where we parked.



In addition to all the ordinary stuff you would find in any French brocante, but at much higher prices, Troc had a lot of furniture and related crud apparently made in Africa, including this small army of figurines.



Then it was back to Fontanes through the "fruit basket of France", the back roads lined with manicured groves of apples, plums, peaches. Rolling country, very long views, lots of the land under diverse and intensive cultivation, at rest now in mid-winter. Even the huge golden cows were lying down in pasture, Blondes d'Aquitaine, glowing in the dull late afternoon light.

Valentine's Day promenade above Albas

This was a favorite walk when we lived in Albas.  It started just up the road from the Creuniers, took us past the La Framie, the house of the ânes, past M. Prunier's, past La Meleze.  It was still light when we got to La croix de Girard, so we were drawn to detour up to the cazal in Chateau Eugenie's new vineyard.


The climb up to the high vineyards is along a hunting road with plenty of pig turds and lots of muddy little pig side-paths running up.

A partly ruined mas near the huge almond orchard


The ânes' owner lives here


The ânes themselves live in back...


Just a taste of the work of Monsieur Prunier. He gives us prunings from his plum trees which flower beautifully indoors in a pot of water. He tells us stories like the time when an old lady drove through his meticulously tended gardens and orchards, over a 6' drop, and smashed into a wall. She broke her thigh in the crash but sat their all night until M. P found her the next morning. "Do you think I can back out?" were her first words. She came from a family renowned for their stoicism.




A glorified cazal. The cazal is usually a small hut in a vineyard which appear to have two purposes: first, they use up the amazing volume of stones in the soil; second they provide some shelter and storage, handy for vineyards which are way uphill from town. This is almost a house, with chimney, an attic, etc.


This is a new vineyard. Chardonnay in a world of the black-red Cahors wine. The cazal is new too.









The lauze roof from the inside...


The view from the cazal...



The cut end of a oak tree blown over in the recent tempest, surrounded by vines...

Hommage à crotte de chien

A jaunty party favor to celebrate Rover's contribution to the culture of Europe