On Friday 21 February Simon and I walked 6 kilometres with les Galoches Yzeuroises group. It was overcast, 16°C, and took us two hours. Simon slipped in the mud near the end of the walk and ended up sprawled out full length on his belly. Face, T-shirt front, coat sleeves and trouser knees all covered in wet black stinky mud, plus a hole in the knee of his nice new tan corduroys. Luckily he just grazed one knee and all the mud washed out of his clothes quite easily. Thanks to Bruno and Geneviève as we stopped off at their place to clean him up a bit before driving home.
Bruno and Geneviève's garden, overlooking the Creuse River. They freely admit they took one look at the garden and the view and decided to buy this before even looking inside the house. They have had to put up with flooding over the bottom third of the garden four times this winter though.
The community orchard. The vine hut is not old but brand new, made in the traditional style when the orchard was planted. Vine huts, usually referred to in the Touraine as 'loges de vignes', are for agricultural labourers to store their tools, eat their lunch and shelter if caught out in bad weather.
The town water supply. Even in this form the structure is referred to as a 'chateau d'eau'. I would have thought that 'tumulus d'eau' was more appropriate in this case. Or 'casemate d'eau'. I always think it looks like some sort of Cold War military bunker.
Bruno informed me that this unremarkable farm is 'the Australia of France'. It's a sheep farm...The name 'la Pluche' is an old word meaning 'plush' or 'fleecy', so it would seem to have been associated with sheep for a long time.
This lake is an étang, one of a series of dams that drain into one another in a line, in the manner that is common in the Brenne, just a few kilometres away. This one is used for irrigation.
Some of the Gorse Ulex europaeus (Fr. ajonc d'Europe) is flowering, providing important early season nectar for bees. Gorse is remarkable in that individual plants flower at different times, so there is always some gorse out somewhere in the vicinity.
A small parcel of oak woodland.
A male Small Bloody-nosed Beetle Timarcha goettingensis (Fr. Petit crache-sang) lumbers across the track. He is easily identifiable as male because of his small size and his 'velcro' feet pads, used to grip on to the bigger female when mating.
Lesser Celandine Ficaria verna (Fr. Ficaire fausse-renoncule), always one of the earliest and most abundant spring wild flowers. As you can tell by the characteristic glossy yellow petals, this is a member of the buttercup family.
These vicious thorns on the roadside belong to a volunteer sapling Black Locust tree Robinia pseudoacacia (Fr. Acacia). They are an invasive nuisance in many places, but appreciated by beekeepers as they are an abundant source of nectar for honey bees and miel d'acacia is the most popular honey in France.
Shutters on a village house.
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