Ice no ice

This photo is from about ten days ago, the one and pretty much only time we've had temperatures cold enough to form ice this winter. We're in a very warm and rainy period right now. This puddle froze in a very strong geometric pattern. I don't know what causes some puddles to freeze like this while others have more curvilinear patterns.

If you look very closely near the center of the image, you can see a group of tiny air bubbles frozen inside the ice.

The women's final in Melbourne was a very fun match to watch, even though Serena Williams lost. Both women played great tennis, but I got the impression that Serena couldn't move as well as she has in the past. Oh well, it's hard to stay at the top of the tennis world at the ripe old age of 34; she's nearly a dinosaur in tennis years.

A blustery day

Today's forecast is for wind and rain. I can already hear the wind outdoors early this morning. The rain is coming later. I'm planning to go out to the market for some of the ingredients to make crêpes on Tuesday, so I should probably get it together and go sooner rather than later. I want some mushrooms from the mushroom lady and some nice ham slices for the savory crêpes. We already have what we need for the sweet ones.

A pile of dead and diseased vine trunks next to the vineyard parcel they were pulled from.

The Australian Open finishes up this weekend with the women's final this morning (our time) and the men's final tomorrow morning (again, our time). It's nice to be able to watch the matches live, although I may record the women's match this morning so I can get to the market and back. I'm rooting for Serena! Tomorrow I'll root for the underdog, Mr. Murray, although it's probably Djokovic's match to lose.

Friday fifites

Most of the wine that Ken and I drink is very local to where we live. Some of it is grown right outside our back gate. A lot comes from within a few kilometers of our town, grown on the heights on either side of the Cher River. But we also drink wine from farther afield. I've gotten into the habit of buying Chablis at a local event where wine producers from other regions come to show and sell their products. We visited that particular winery in Chablis in 2014. Chablis is made from chardonnay and it makes a nice change from the local sauvignon blanc. Every now and then we enjoy wines from Burgundy, Bordeaux, the Rhône Valley, Languedoc, and, of course, Champagne. Most of those come from the supermarket.

Welcome to Limeray, 50mm, f/8.0, 1/100s, ISO 320.

Those other places are too far away to drive to on a regular basis; even Chablis is a three hour drive from here. Still, there are wine areas closer by, like Vouvray, Valençay, Chinon, Bourgueil, and Saumur, all part of the larger Loire Valley wine region, as we are, and each with its own special characteristics. On Wednesday, we drove up to Limeray which is in the Touraine Amboise AOC area. We stopped at one individual winery and a cooperative winery and came back with a trunk full of good stuff: over 50 liters of wine, including gamay, sweet and dry sauvignon, and some dry chenin. A nice haul!

Don't tread on me

This is the last one, I promise. I'm not to the point of making plaster casts. Yet. The vineyard road continues to be a muddy mess. I'd rather it freeze solid, frankly. Callie wouldn't get so dirty on her walks. Oh well, this is the way it is. Muck. Yuck.

A busy pattern.

We made a wine run on Wednesday to a town up on the Loire called Limeray, about forty kilometers from us. There was a particular wine that I liked, a white made from chenin grapes, from a particular winery that we know up there. Turns out, they had run out of it until the 2015 vintage is bottled. It will be available in March. Not to worry, we didn't leave empty-handed.

I'm tired

Or tyred, if you live in the UK. Now you can be tired, too. There are many species out there making tracks. Here's evidence of another. I don't know its nesting habits, but I'm pretty sure I know what it eats. Perhaps I should consult with Mr. Attenborough.

Any guesses?

I noticed that we're gaining three minutes of daylight today. The evenings are noticeably lighter now. That is, it's not quite dark at six pm. Of course, that depends on the cloud cover.

Make tracks

In winters past I would often see the tracks of critters in the snow. Deer, hares, birds, foxes, dogs, cats, etc. Now that we have mostly mud, aside from the occasional deer print, the tracks I see out in the vineyard are made by cars, tractors, and motorbikes.

The vehicle that made this track rode over a mole hill on the side of the road.

Ken made a pot of beans yesterday. They're little cocos blancs (tiny white beans) that we'll eat today with sausages. The leftovers will get made into baked beans, I hope. Next week we plan to eat a meal of crêpes stuffed with ham, cheese, and mushrooms. Crêpes are a traditional treat for la chandeleur (candlemas). More about that later.

Ice patterns

Monday macros has called in sick today. There's a nasty shutter bug going around. Ba-dum-pum. Filling in is a standard shot taken with the 15-85mm zoom lens. Last week, when it was cold, the puddles in the vineyard road had frozen over. Callie tried to break through some of them and taste the water below.

Callie missed this puddle.

I had to take the car out to run an errand on Sunday morning. When I started up the car, I noticed that Bert was sitting on the hood watching me. Rather than get out and move him, I started the wipers and sprayed the windshield with washer fluid. He jumped to the ground lickety-split. Plus, I got a clean windshield.