Forsythia

The forsythia around the neighborhood are in full flower right now. This is our big one out back. The little one is not doing as well. I really want to cut this one back some this year, so I'll have to read up on when pruning should be done.

Forsythia in the south forty. The barrel-shaped shrub in the background is a laurier sauce (bay laurel).

Market day was successful yesterday. I got our first bunch of asperges blanches (white asparagus) of the season, a bunch of radis roses (red and white radishes), and a dozen nems (egg rolls) and two rouleaux de printemps (spring rolls) from the Asian guys. I'm looking forward to strawberry season.

Break on through to the other side

Yup, it's the doors again (and windows). Nothing much to say, except that I think I posted a photo of the big door a while back without remembering that it was part of our rental house. I think that the upstairs window (where the shutter is open) is in one of the bedrooms; the ground floor doors on this end of the house were closed to us.

I'd love to see this house today. I wonder how it's changed.

Friday was an exciting day for us. I shampooed the rug in the den and Ken laundered the slip covers on our living room chairs. Spring cleaning has begun. This morning I'm heading over to the market in Saint-Aignan for a few things. Woo-hoo!

Exterior

The gîte we rented in Cavaillon was a big building. Parts of it were closed off, like this, the eastern end of the building. I'm assuming the building was originally a farmhouse, so the doors could lead to storage rooms and such.

What's behind closed doors?

Today's the last day of our warm spell. Starting tomorrow, we'll be back in the single digits for a while. No freezes are predicted. Yet. April can be filled with weather surprises, most notably freezes that kill tender buds on fruit trees and grape vines. We will cross our fingers.

What's going on (?)

I snapped this quick view from the guest room window yesterday afternoon. You can see the orange backhoe lifting grape vine trunks (with a huge rake-looking attachment) from their piles into the yellow dump truck. Look closely. There's a guy standing up on the cab of the yellow dump truck for scale. Each time the truck was filled, that guy drove it over to the ravine (where the acacia trees were removed) and dumped it.

Kickin' up a little dust in the vineyard.

I walked out there with Tasha to take a closer look, but I couldn't really see where the dumping was happening. The backhoe had cleaned out the ravine earlier in the day. I saw no sign of either the grape vine trunks or the acacia stumps in the ground and that really puzzled me. Did they rip all the stumps out of the ground? When did that happen? Where did they go? Where are the grape vine trunks? I'll walk out there again this morning, hopefully before the work starts up again and take a closer look.

Never a dull moment!

La Durance, seen from Cavaillon

The title says it all. The Durance is une rivière as opposed to un fleuve. That is, it is a tributary of another river (in this case, the Rhône) and does not directly empty into a sea or ocean. The Durance is just over 300 km long (about 200 miles) and, toward its western end, skirts the southern flanks of the Luberon range.

The Durance in September. Not a lot of water. Digitized color slide, September 2001.

Nothing at all happened with that giant dump truck vehicle yesterday. I just sits out there. I'll keep an eye on it.* Otherwise, the spirit moved me to get out yesterday afternoon and cut grass! I got the south forty almost all cut (except for a small patch around some trees/shrubs). I need to go out and get some gas for further cutting.

*As I type this, another truck just went out into the vineyard. And I notice there's a big 'ol backhoe out there that I didn't see arrive. Stay tuned.

Above Cavaillon

Just west of central Cavaillon, the land rises up in a rocky outcropping. Various trails (and a road) go to the top, providing visitors with sweeping views of the city below and beyond. to the west and south the Durance River makes its way to the Rhône near Avignon.

One of the many routes to Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle passes this way, I believe. Digitized color slide, September 2001.

Yesterday morning, a huge tractor-trailer drove up past our house and out into the vineyard. It had been carrying a very big vehicle, sort of like a dump truck, that was now driving behind. The crew left the dump truck thing out by where the first row of trees was recently cut down and drove the tractor-trailer away.Maybe we'll see today what's going on out there.

The car

This is the car we rented for our 2001 Provence trip. It's a Renault Scénic, I believe. It looks pretty much like any car you can see on the road today. I don't remember much about it. I suppose that's a good thing. We rented it in Paris and drove it down to Provence and back.

Today's cars have more pronounced front ends, as is the style. I prefer this style. Digitized color slide, September 2001.

Ken and I are more and more convinced that we've identified the house we rented for this trip in the photo I posted yesterday. With the help of Google Maps and our photos, we're pretty certain now. As soon as I figure out how to add an arrow to the photo, I'll post that. Please try to contain your excitement.