Mist on the river

By now you can tell that I'm doing a little series on our walk down to the river last Friday morning. You can also tell that I've been removing the color from some of the photos. Taking pictures in the fog is challenging. There's not much color to begin with, and I seem to get colors in the photo that I didn't originally see.

Mist on the Cher River shows up better in black and white, at least in this picture.

For example, the fog tends to come out looking purple in my pictures. I use Photoshop to crop and straighten up a lot of my images and I'm learning how to use other post-processing tools to make the final shot look more or less how I saw it in the first place. Or even how I wish I had seen it.

As for removing the color altogether, some photos are just more dramatic in black and white. I can see things that I might not have noticed in color. Not all images lend themselves to b/w, however. Contrast is the key to a good b/w photo, I think. And I know there is a talent to taking original photos in black and white versus creating a b/w image from a color one in post-processing. I don't have much experience with the former, and I'm far from an expert in the latter.

Do any of you photographers out there dabble in b/w? I'd love to hear what you think.

We'll cross that bridge

...when we come to it. And so we did. The dirt road to the river crosses over this bridge, which is little more than a culvert with a low stone wall on either side. The stream that it crosses is called La Rouère de l'Aulne (The Alder Stream); it runs down through the woods just to the south of our house to join the river.

The thickening fog made it difficult to see more than a hundred meters or so.

Near this point there are several paths that branch off through the woods. They're more than paths, really, but less than roads. It's obvious from the tire tracks that vehicles go through often. I suspect there are some hunters in their vans, some farmers on their tractors, and some kids in cars who frequent these woods. There were a few empty beer and wine bottles strewn about. But on this morning we were quite alone.

Except for the ducks.

We're going in there?

Callie may look like she's a bit nervous about heading into the woods and toward the river, but in reality she's very excited. She likes to explore, especially when there are new places to sniff around in. There are often deer grazing in this field and I just knew she could smell them.

The fog got thicker as we headed into the woods toward the river.

We actually did see a deer on our way back out and Callie had a good romp chasing after it. She never goes very far and always comes back happy. After all, chasing animals is what she was bred to do. But in her case the wildlife has the advantage. Border collies like to chase in short circles; the long run is not at all interesting to them.

Down by the river

Callie and I took our morning walk down by the river on Friday. We normally don't go that way because it involves walking down our road and then crossing the main road between Mareuil-sur-Cher and Saint-Aignan. The cars and trucks roll quite fast along that stretch and I worry about Callie. But on Friday we gave it shot. She did very well and we made it without incident.

One tree or three? On the left bank of the foggy Cher River.

Once we crossed the big road, we headed down a dirt path to the water. The sun was just coming up and fog was forming over the river. The woods were silent and a bit eerie, but very pretty. The ground was muddier than we're used to as the river had risen over its banks a couple of weeks ago.

It has since receded into its bed. Callie discovered a few ducks hanging out on the riverbank and got all excited when they took off across the water. For a moment I was afraid she'd dive in after them, but she's not a water dog and I didn't have to worry.

Snowdrops among the molehills

The perce-neige (snowdrops) are up and, compared to last year, they seem to be several weeks early. The good news is that this particular bunch came back after being uprooted last winter by the moles. I had just planted them after swiping them from the woods on our neighbors' property (shhhh, don't tell) and the moles raised a hill right where I put them.

Snowdrops after an overnight rain shower.

They still sprouted and grew and over time I gently nudged them back underground. And here they are this year blooming! Interestingly, none of the other patches I planted seem to be up yet. I'm hoping they will come up before long. If not, I may make another scavenging run in the woods for more bulbs.

I could always buy some, but there's no fun in that.

Mountains and molehills

The moles are very active in our back yard this year. I swear I'm going to name the little mountain range out there. It's probably visible from space. A few years ago I tried, in vain, to get rid of the little varmints (you can read about it here if you're interested). But I've since made my peace with the moles. They're good for the soil (if not for the grass) and they eat grubs and other larvae.

The Great Southwestern Mole Range in part of the back yard. A good source of potting soil.

Oddly enough, I thought that Bertie would help us to reduce the mole population or, at the very least, scare the little devils away. But no. In the nearly two years that Bert has been with us, he's brought us exactly two moles. And he didn't eat either of them.

Last week, during Bert's annual visit to the vet, we learned that cats aren't generally interested in moles. The vet didn't really explain why, and the little internet research I did wasn't particularly illuminating. But the evidence is clear: Bertie's presence has not had an impact on our mole population.

It could be because Bert doesn't spend a lot of time in the back yard. I think he sees the yard as the dog's domain. Callie will chase him out or up a tree if she sees him out there. Bert's wanderings generally take him farther afield. Maybe all the moles in our neighborhood see our yard as a safe haven.

Just my luck.

Party food

Our football evening with friends was much fun. The game was good, and it even went into overtime. The better team won. The food was good, too. We tried to make everything more or less "finger food."

Some of the party food. The black bits are black olives.

In addition to the savory muffins I showed you yesterday, we had egg salad on toast rounds and foie de morue (cod liver) on toast squares. The main course was strips of chicken breast prepared Buffalo wings style with celery and carrot strips and a blue-cheese dressing dip.

The original plan was to make deviled eggs, but the darned eggs didn't peel well. What a mess. So they got turned into egg salad. We opened a bottle of Montaudan champagne to start, then moved to a red Bourgueil (cabernet franc) and a white Saumur (chenin blanc).

The chicken was a little disappointing in that it was kind of dry; that's what you get with breast meat. The supermarket was actually out of wings, but we had already decided that wings (with bones) might be a bit too messy to handle. But they might have been better...

Our friends brought an apple pie with a walnut crumble topping which we served for dessert. Very rich and very tasty!