Thursday, November 05, 2015

On the forest floor

Well, woods is more like it. There are forests around, but we live among the vines, so we have patches of woods here and there. The bigger forests are not far. I can see part of the Forêt de Gros Bois across the river valley from us when I'm walking in the vineyard. The Forêt de Brouard is just to our south.

This mushroom is called amanite, and is quite toxic. Don't eat them!

Some of the patches of woods around us also have names. Closest to us is the Bois des Vaux where Callie and I sometimes walk. She's chased animals in there and that's where we encounter the stuffed clothing nailed to the trees. Spooky. I think that the difference between un bois and une forêt in French is pretty much the same as between woods and forest in English; it's a matter of size, the former being much smaller in area than the latter.

Be they woods or forests, they're not wild places but almost meticulously managed for wood. In forests, paths and roadways are well maintained and hunting blinds can be seen at regular intervals. Forests and woods are refuges for game like deer and wild boar. Except, of course, during hunting season.

Here's a case where an accent mark makes a difference. The word forêt, with the circonflexe over the "e" means forest. Without the circonflexe, it's foret which means drill bit. The words are pronounced exactly alike, your only clue to their difference being their gender: it's une forêt but un foret.

15 comments:

  1. "Without the circonflexe, it's foret which means drill bit"....
    Someone ought to tell our brico!!

    And Fly Agaric won't kill you if you nibble a little...
    but you won't need Autumn to see pretty leaves!!
    It is believed that shamans and their ilk used to use it, and others, for making drinks...
    drinks that allowed them to "see the other side"!

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    1. Mind you... the same brico has male and female log splitters!!

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    2. I've split a lot of logs - and so has my husband.
      As to the forets with and without I would hope that context would be helpful just in case of une/un problems!

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    3. When faced with the choice on display...
      it is in fact "une forêt des forets!"
      Pricey forets mind you....
      but 'tis the only place I've seen 25cm long, 5 and 6 millimetre highspeed steel drill bits actually on display...

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  2. That's a beautiful shot. The focus is perfect. After that bit of rain yesterday, I'm hoping to find some mushrooms popping up around here.

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  3. We call them Röd Flugsvamp. they sure are photogenic.

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  4. Thanks for the handy vocab lesson :)

    And, I never realized that there were mushrooms that REALLY look like that... it looks like something off of a bûche de Noël or out of a Disney movie.

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  5. When I saw that amanita, I thought what Judith mentioned. Pure Disney! I also didn't know the meaning of ordures in addition to foret. Live and learn.

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  6. great but poisonous we have a lot of them here

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  7. I've never see a live one of those photogenic mushrooms. And thank you for the French lesson.

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  8. I love the contrasting of all the autumn colors here!

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  9. Thanks to scouting I recognized this mushroom right away. touch it not!

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  10. tim, remind me never to go shopping with you... ;)

    potty, LOL!

    stuart, we had some cèpes come up in our yard, but we're still to nervous to eat any.

    stefan, yes. I've seen some incredibly beautiful shots of them by other photographers. Makes me jealous! :)

    judy, I thought the same thing! But now I'm all blasé about it. Pffffft! LOL

    evelyn, "ordure" is a good word to know. Calling someone that is really not nice.

    gosia, anything that pretty has got to be bad for you.

    chris, zee Franch lesSON of zee day.

    anne marie, me too!

    michael, I was a Webelos. I never really figured out where they fit in the whole scouting thing. But I didn't last. Various reasons.

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    1. stuart, I mean, to nervous to eat any we find ourselves... I eat them when I buy them!

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  11. Like others have said, Disney was my first thought on seeing this 'shroom.

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