Summer rolls on

Only one month in, but it feels like it's been summer forever. It's hard to remember bundling up against the cold, building fires, and temperatures near freezing. I'm sure we'll be reminded soon enough, but for now we're enjoying what passes for sultry summertime in these parts.

The summer vineyard.

Vegetable garden maintenance continues. I'm planning on cutting the "grass" today. It's mostly weeds and wild flowers, but it needs to be cut. But first, I have fallen apples to pick up off the ground.

Sloe motion

These, I think, are sloe berries. They grow wild on the edges of the woods around the vineyard parcels. The berries are not particularly good to eat, but can be used (with plenty of sugar) to make preserves or to infuse alcohol (commonly with gin, as in sloe gin). The bushes are thorny, hence the other name for this plant: blackthorn.

Beautiful purple sloe berries.

We're getting the typical abundance of zucchini from the vegetable garden. So far, we've cooked a fair amount of it on the grill by slicing the squash lengthwise, then seasoning the slices with olive oil, salt, pepper, and other spices. I've also made a kind of tabbouleh salad with cubed zucchini, bulgur wheat, tomato, corn, mint, olive oil, and lemon juice. The garden tomatoes are growing, but won't begin to ripen for a while yet.

De bat fly in me face

After a sleep-interrupting round of thunderstorms between midnight and one this morning, we had a visitor in the loft. I was just getting back to sleep around two-thirty when I heard the soft beating of wings. I knew it was a bat. It wasn't the first one. Callie heard it, too, and started to whine.

It's been so dry that the daisies wither very soon after opening.

I got up and turned on a light and, sure enough, a bat flew over my head to the other end of the room, spun around, and came back toward me. Callie started barking, loudly, and jumping around trying to catch it. We opened the windows wide and I used a t-shirt to try to steer the bat toward one of them. At one point I tossed the t-shirt into the air. It landed on a beam several feet above my head (one of those recurring instances of "I couldn't have made that shot if I was trying"). After about five minutes (and Ken taking Callie downstairs), the bat finally found a window and was gone. I don't think I got back to sleep until around four.

What's on tv

There's turbulence over at Canal+, the group of premium channels available by subscription in France (and throughout the world). Last month, the long-time director of programming at the group, Alain De Greef, passed away. We also lost several of the group's subsidiary channels that were part of our satellite package, like Sport+ and Cuisine+, channels that just stopped broadcasting. Now there are rumors coming out of the group that more changes are being made. Among them, and most disconcerting to a lot of people, is the potential cancellation of the political satire show "les Guignols de l'Info," a staple of Canal's line-up for the past twenty-seven years. We'll have to stay tuned (or not).

The guy in the middle is the puppet version of PPDA (Patrick Poivre d'Arvor), the former TF1 anchorman and the "host" of les Guignols de l'Info.

What NOT to watch this week. Our tv magazine rates shows and movies using a star system: one star is ok, four stars is best. They use another symbol for really bad movies: the red dot. It means "à zapper" (change the channel!). The editors often include comments about the movie that make me laugh.

Another week, another killer shark. This one's original title is "Swamp Shark." Shark movies never fail to displease our reviewers. With one notable exception: Sharknado. They liked that one. And Sharknado 2. Thumbs up. And, if you look at this week's cover, you will see that there's a report on the filming of the upcoming Sharknado 3. Oh boy.

Killer Shark. American made-for-tv movie. Directed by Griff Furst, 2011.
With Kristy Swanson, Richard Tanne, D.B. Sweeney, and Jeff Chase.
Every year, hundreds of young people gather in the bayou for Gator Fest, but this year, a giant shark lurks in the swamps.
► An attempt to copy Spielberg's "Jaws" without the talent or the budget. The result is sometimes funny, but above all, mostly annoying.
For adults and children over 10.

Hot dog

Thursday was the hottest day of the week, and arguably the hottest day in recent memory, at least where we live. Our new fridge was delivered without incident and once we got all the food packed back in, we took Callie outside for some hose fun.

Callie loves playing with the hose.

She loves to chase the water and snap at it as it comes out of the nozzle. It's good play and she gets cooled down with the added benefit of a kind of bath. And with the heat she dries off pretty quickly. Of course, now she needs a good brushing.

Getting a mouthful.

We're still going to be in the upper 80sF over the next few days, but it will feel much better than the upper 90sF that we had yesterday.

Cool as a cucumber

It's cool this morning at just about 20ºC (68ºF), but we're expecting the hottest day of the week today with the high temperature in the upper 90sF. We've been enjoying a few cucumbers from the garden, but we're in a production lull right now. And, today we're expecting delivery of a new refrigerator, which means emptying everything from the old one into coolers before transferring it all back into the new one.

Long English cucumbers. Tasty!

I think it will be a good afternoon to get Callie soaked with the hose. We'll see how it goes.

It's gonna be a grape day

Our heat is back for a couple of days. Tuesday was beautiful, but today we'll be up into the mid-80sF and on Thursday we are expecting a high of 37ºC (98.6ºF). Ouch! The grapes are loving it and look like they're growing very well. Our tomato plants are covered with blossoms and not a few little green tomatoes. I've got to keep them well watered.

The bunches of grapes seem more plentiful this year than in recent years.

The grass has stopped growing with the heat and lack of water, but the weeds in the yard have not, sending up flower stalks all over. I will have to get the lawnmower out soon and mow them all down. The ground is like concrete and what grass there is (was) is withered and brown. It will all come back with the rains, but I'm in no hurry for that, hoping that the summer weather continues for a while.