La nuit de Varennes (sur Fouzon)

Not far from the château at Valençay is the small town of Varennes-sur-Fouzon. It's not a place we knew before we met L. & J. from Arizona. They have rented a vacation house in Varennes several times over the years. This past weekend, they invited us for lunch. Saturday's meal started with tasty stuffed mushrooms, followed by chicken Marbella and a lovely risotto. After salad and cheese, we capped it all off with an apple tart.

The main road through town.

As will happen, we continued enjoying the afternoon with wine flowing freely and eventually found ourselves gathering around a campfire as the evening darkened. Our friends offered a bed for the night as we were not in a good condition to drive. We enjoyed a hearty breakfast of eggs and sausage on Sunday morning before setting off for home.

Just before breakfast, I got up and out for a walk with Callie. The town on Sunday morning was very quiet and pretty, and I had my camera.

The title of this post is a reference to the 1982 film, "La Nuit de Varennes," which tells the story of king Louis XVI's and Marie Antoinette's attempt to flee France in 1791. They were intercepted and arrested in the town of Varennes-en-Argonne in the Lorraine region, then taken back to Paris to stand trial before being executed.

Better late than never

Well, I didn't prepare a blog post for this morning. So I wasn't prepared when we ended up staying overnight at the vacation home of some friends. There may have been some wine involved. And lots of merry-making. We did the prudent thing and didn't get on the road after midnight. We're very grateful to L. and J. (and H. and R.) for their wonderful hospitality.

A brand new vineyard next to the old favorites. See the little grape vines in the foreground?

Neat and trim

The vineyard is in flux. The grape vines are growing rapidly, the flowers are setting fruit. And the growers are out trimming. There is also a new parcel planted with grapes. Exciting!

Nice and neat. And the sun gets to shine on the growing grapes.

The photo above shows how the vines are pruned in the growing season. Long tendrils are cut back so the vines' energy goes into producing grapes and not leaves. It's very pretty. The photo below shows what the vines look like before the pruning. Wild, eh?

The tendrils reach out in all directions. Impossible to walk between the rows.

Not a Bronx cheer

The pleasant surprise at the blueberry farm was that they had planted a whole field of raspberries. After picking two whole buckets of blueberries, Ken and I borrowed a container from our friend K. and picked some raspberries. I probably ate as many as I picked. Shame on me.

Framboises. Don't they look amazingly good?

Along the way we met a British woman who lives nearby. She recognized us from our blogs and introduced herself. We felt a little like celebrities. Christine was very nice and we enjoyed talking with her. The blogging thing is abstract on a day-to-day basis. You write stuff and publish pictures, but when you actually meet someone who reads it regularly, it becomes something else. Very nice.

Picking raspberries in the morning sun. It was not at all hot out. Very pleasant.

We ate half the raspberries while they were fresh. Yummy. Then I froze the remaining half. We'll use those to make frozen yogurt or ice cream in the coming weeks. And I have to say, they are delicious! We will certainly go back next year for more.

Raspberries in front, blueberries behind, then a big stand of conifers.

Throwback Thursday

This is another photo from summer 1986 when Ken and I moved to California. We had gotten everything unloaded and removed the cartop carrier. I wanted to wash the car after its week-long trip from Washington, DC. We were enjoying the hot California sunshine and the fact that the air was dry and not at all humid. If you've been in DC (or pretty much anywhere on the US east coast) in August, you know what I'm talking about.

Me and my Subaru. Remember mud flaps? Do cars still have mud flaps?

Berry blue

On Tuesday, Ken and I and our friend K. drove up to the local myrtille (blueberry) farm for a morning of pick-your-own fun. I did this last year with great success (we're just now finishing the berries I froze last July), so I was looking forward to more of the same. I was not disappointed.

The morning was bright and sunny and cool. The pickin' was easy!

The berries were ripe and plentiful and picking them off the bushes was pretty easy. Ken and I filled up our buckets with more than eight kilograms of berries, over seventeen pounds! Today I will wash them, pick the stems out, and freeze most of them in zip-top bags for use in the coming year. Of course, we plan to eat some fresh ones, too.

Ripe berries were abundant; we timed our visit just right.

A new feature at the farm this year was section of pick-your-own framboises (raspberries). Wow. The bushes were heavy with plump and juicy fruit and we picked 800 grams, nearly two pounds. I think we ate half for dessert yesterday and the rest went into the freezer for making ice cream or frozen yogurt in the days to come. I'll post photos of the raspberries soon.

We had a rainy day

It didn't rain much, but it did rain on Monday. It's good for the grass, but also good for the weeds. Still, I got some work done in the vegetable garden. I planted a second row of green beans. I'm following the successive planting method so that, if all goes well, we will have new beans when the first beans are done. I plan to plant a third row in another week.

These are little morning glory types of flowers. They open up in the sun, and close up at night. Tiny, but very pretty.

We harvested a bunch of chervil, too, which we used in making stuffed grape leaves, or dolmas. Ken picked thirty-five leaves from the grape vines in our yard. That's pretty much all they're good for, as they don't produce very many grapes. We also harvested some mint for the stuffing. Ken made the stuffing with ground beef, rice, and the herbs. I stuffed and folded the leaves. They're cooking in the oven as I type. Can't wait to taste them.