I was going to call this posting, “Gardening Can Be Dangerous To Your Health, Part 2, because I am limping around like Walter Brenner, the character in the 50′s TV show, The Real McCoys. He was the grand father who had a “hitch in his gitalong” as they say in Texas. Because of all of the rain we’ve had here there is a bumper crop of weeds and the best time to pull these weeds is while the ground is still damp. Once everything dries out the soil becomes as hard as cement and, no kidding, I am out there with a pick axe to get big weeds up. The soil is still muddy and as a result, my gardening shoes have huge clumps of mud on the soles making it difficult to walk. Plus, I am wearing Maurice’s gardening shoes as mine hurt my toes now. I’ve had to stop wearing my glasses (bifocals) when I’m pulling weeds, especially on the hilly parts, as I don’t always look at the right angle through the lenses and have come close to falling several times. The seat of my clothes that I wear in the garden are permanently stained with dirt and weeds as I often have to sit down to pull weeds as trying to work on a hill does a number on my hip. Also, I am getting what I think is a carpal tunnel problem with my right hand due to that repetitive motion of yanking weeds out of the ground. I can hardly pick up a pan with it. God, I sound so old, don’t I?
I love it when a large weed pulls out of the ground with the pleasing pop, a long root still attached. I’ve learned dandelions have to have their root pulled up or they will regrow. Maurice has been really ill with a flu he caught from my grandchildren while we were in Switzerland and hasn’t been able to do much of anything but cough so I am on my own. I have huge mounds of weeds at the end of working and I put them in a wheel barrow and roll them down a hill and make a big pile behind a bush. You can’t see the pile from the road or our house but I know Maurice will have a fit when he sees where I put them. He burns a huge pile of plant debris at the end of each summer and I’m thinking he would like these in the area where he does the burning but but after working in the sun for several hours I don’t have the energy to get them over some difficult terrain. Maurice has the same problem with the way I “clean”. Sometimes I get tired of looking at a mess on a counter and I just put most of it in a drawer. If I can’t see it, that’s good enough for me. Of course, this drives Maurice mad. Then he says, “We need to clean out this drawer”. That’s marriage speak for, “You need to clean out this drawer.”
A friend suggested that it would have been better to have planted lavender on our land than the clover. Actually, the clover keeps us from having to pull weeds. We just sort of mow the whole thing once a year. We have lots of lavender around but, like anything planted, it requires constant weeding. Those beaufiul fields of lavender are packed with weeds unless they are in an area full of tourists then they get tidied up. I am constantly pulling weeds from around the base of lavender plants so they won’t grow up in the middle of the plant.
I know it sounds like all I do is pull weeds and in the middle of Spring and the start of Summer, it seems like that to me too. But the time will come when I can just sit on our porch, have a glass of wine and enjoy the view. Although I will get up from time to time to remove a snail that is intruding into my perfect view.

Provence and, I think, the rest of France has had an unusual amount of rain this Spring but I think Summer is finally on its way as the skies have been blue the last few days and the temperature is finally climbing out of the sixties and even got into the 80′s yesterday. I know I will complaining about the heat in no time at all but I’m looking forward to it right now. The poppies are at the end of their run, a sign that summer is almost here.

This field doesn’t look like it is anywhere near finished but it actually is. And, if you should get tired of those flashy red poppies, there is always this…

All of the sudden I came upon this unexpected field of lavender flowers. I assume they are some sort of weed-not the cultivated lavender plant Provence is known for. The real lavender comes next month. Weeds seem to do a cyclical thing where one totally takes over an area one summer only to be replaced by something different the next year. Poppies do so well, though, that nothing else usually gets a chance where they are. In our own yard, the landscaping lady plowed up the field below us to bare earth and then planted a type of clover with a really tenancious root system. Once they start growing they are almost impossible to pull up. I assume she did this to prevent soil erosion. Now, in retrospect, I’m not sure if this was a good idea. Since weeds do so well here, and they were growing like crazy in that plot of land, I’m not sure why the clover was needed. We had quite a few genet there and the clover seems to have kept that from coming back. Maurice always mows it down at least once a year to make it look less overgrown. Anyway, I digress…

A closer view of the field of lavender flowers.

And here they are, ready for their closeup.

While in Switzerland I watched my daughter in law quickly mince some onions with a handy little cooking tool, totally manual. I don’t think I’ve seen these in France and I dimly have a memory of chopping something with a chopper type device that my mother had many years ago. I was happily given a gift of one for myself. Being Swiss, it is a little more high tech than some I’ve seen, with a little device inside that turns the blade every time after it cuts.

Here it is. You just place the clear plastic part over the food you want to dice and…

and this blade comes down and starts chopping.

And in not time at all, your onions look like this. Much faster to my way of thinking, than using my cuisinard and easier to clean. Little things in life can make you happy.

Sideroads of Europe

Every Spring I am amazed by the number of things seen in nature. There are millions of weeds, thousands of snails, every flying insect imaginable, flowers in abundance-it almost seems like too much. I guess mother nature is making sure there are enough snails/flowers/weeds/birds/insects to keep it all moving along.

This is the view out my window. It’s hard to see because my camera wouldn’t focus on it, but that brownish blob on the top left of the window is a snail. I think there are even more than last year and they are climbing up everything, plants, trees, house and my cabana. I think they must hit something solid and then just start climbing upwards. I know some of you have recommended beer to get rid of snails. Apparantly snails are attracted to beer and will drown in it. However, I would need gallons of beer to make even a dent in the snail population here.

A look at a section of our yard. The poppies are covering some plants I planted last year. You can also see the yellow flowering genets in the background. Their fragrance is in the air now. Can you see the white spots amongst the poppies? -Snails. The bain of my existence. I pulled up these poppies recently after their season was over and it looks so bare.

Sideroads of Europe