Dateline: South of France...

April 5, 2009

Despite the predicted probability of rain the sun shone amidst clear skies this morning, that azure blue that is so characteristic of the south of France. It has a depth to it that makes you feel that no matter what might happen it could hold back the blackness of space beyond. When it is with you it seems that all is possible, when it is not, well just say that that might not be a propitious day for adventure.

Today I had set a couple of tasks for myself and also was invited to help Christian and Corinne do some work on the hives. They were going to kill one of the Queen’s that was hurt and replace her with a Royal cell from another hive, a cell that would hatch in about a week into a new Queen. One of the hives with perhaps 60,000 bees had produced several of these Royal cells clearly intending to produce a new queen. Normally this queen would either replace the older queen or would take some portion of the hive and migrate to a new home.

You can’t control bees really, you can only set up conditions that are favourable to them. But if they want to leave they’ll leave and all of your investment in time and money for the hive will be lost. In the beekeeping world this happens fairly frequently. But they will only leave following a new queen so making sure that the queen is happy, with no challengers, is critical.

My tasks for the day were to finish cutting the grass and cleaning up the courtyard and to organize my tools for the work I was to undertake in the next couple of weeks. This was actually more work than you might imagine and I spent the better part of the day taking care of this (taking out a couple of hours to help Christian and Corinne with the bees).

By evening I had everything done and lit the first fire in the fireplace for the year. It was a good fire and burned well into the night while I cooked up some stir fry and made a stew for eating over the next couple of days…days predicted to be colder and with more rain. I wanted to be ready for them!

After toasting my Dad with a rye and ginger (or two), I went to bed to Travel further with Charlie. Steinbeck was still in his wondrous mood, marveling at the vitality of the Midwest, the can-do spirit and youthful vigorousness of it. I could only wonder at the incongruity with our times and the eminent demise of Detroit as well as the economic malaise gripping the land and indeed the world. What would be his sage observation today? Would he marvel at the breadth of back necessary to carry this load? Or would he advise all of the Midwest to get into their mobile homes and make for greener pastures. We’ll never know.

Have a little Languedoc at home!

Christian and Corinne of course, make honey…several delicious varieties of it actually. Different plants flower at different times so they can actually collect honey after the flowering of rosemary and thyme, after the fruit trees flowers and then after the grapes and wildflowers flower. Each honey is quite distinct in flavour and colour. They can make only between 5 and 15 kilos per year at the moment so production is very limited.

We were discussing this recently and wanted to see if people were interested in ordering packets of local products, which they could put together and mail to them. Something like 125 grams of honey, a bottle of local olive oil (which is excellent btw), and a sachet of fresh picked local herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, bay leaf and a few others) which grow wild all over here. Christian has mailed herbs to me before and I can attest to the fact that there is nothing available in any store in the US that can compare to the flavours.

So if you’re interested please send me an email at mikeleb1959@ gmail.com. I would guess a whole package might be $25-35 plus shipping.

Minding my own beeswax....

April 4th, 2009

Saturday morning…I’ve already lost track of time. I had to check my iphone to see what day it was. Seven-thirty am and I’m rarin’ to go. I love the market in Sommiere for the food, the colour and the fresh air and sometimes just the walk. Its beautiful town and today was already bright, sunny and warm. A perfect day!

And Bonus! There was an antique market going on at the same time. I don’t know if its been there before and I’d just missed it but it was such a treat to do a couple of my favourite things in one trip. I didn’t find anything but I did get some ideas on the pricing of a variety of stuff.

I did buy a Wisteria plant as is my custom, that is to buy at least one plant for the farm every trip to the market. I haven’t yet decided where it should go. If anyone knows what kind of conditions it likes let me know. I have several possibilities.

I could also hear Cash Converters calling as well. I’d seen a weed whacker and an old electric lawn mower there before and was sure I could get them for a pittance. Sure enough they were still there and I happily loaded them into the car after paying just 25 Euros for both. Now I could cut the grass and trim things up so they looked good.

I was just into that about 45 minutes when Christian and Corinne dropped around and offered to take me with them on their hive servicing afternoon. Ok, that sounds a little strange…they keep bees and they had to check on all the hives and make sure that the Queen’s were in good shape. Not so strange after all! They found me some gear and advised me on how to don all this odd apparel. “Make sure you tuck this in, and tape that up, two layers of clothing, hook this around your thumb to keep the sleeve from riding up.“ So many directions I felt like I was preparing for a beauty pageant!

But I found out why they needed to be so careful. Pretty obvious I guess but I was not prepared for the intensity of it. There were tens of thousands of bees in each hive and all of them angry, trying to protect the queen, and intent on kamikaze action to do so. I was virtually pelted by wave after wave of bees. The only relief was in the small smoke generator that Christian periodically waved around. I was very glad for the extra dressing instructions as I couldn’t imagine how I would have reacted had the bees made their way through my clothing and started to sting me from inside my suit. I remained very quiet and assisted in the effort to service the hives as best I could. I even got to paint the back of one of the queens with a little red paint dobber so it could be easy to find her.

After that bit of excitement I went home to finish cutting the grass and get ready for dinner with Christian and Corinne. I spent the evening teaching her two boys a little English and trying my best to utilize the little French that I do know so they would be inspired by my example….needless to say they went to watch a French movie and my idea of teaching them English was put aside.

I made my way home at about 11:00, very tired and ready for bed. The farm was comfortable and warm after a few days of heating and I curled up with Travels with Charlie. Steinbeck was going on and on about mobile homes and how wonderful they were….it seems something has been lost in translation since his time. It was like I was in a time warp listening to a mobile home salesman talk about the advantages of mobile home parks….I don’t think they knew then that they attracted tornadoes.

Clearing brush....

April 3rd, 2009

I woke, as I often do here, suddenly at 10:30 am, the effects of sleep deprivation still lingering. I had a beautiful shower outside and made myself a cup of tea and piece of toast. Christian had come and begun the work to clear brush around the old beehive well so I joined him in doing that. A new law had been passed recently that outlined the amount of clear and pruned space that needed to surround each house and property and so that meant a significant amount of brush clearing and burning had to be done.

This is not normal brush. A few of you who have been here know that this brush fights back. It grabs hold of you with razor like claws scratching and cutting, sticking you with needle like pins that can easily become mildly infected. This, as they say, is not your mother’s brush. It is dense, comprised of perhaps 10 different vines, plants and trees, most of which have some kind of thorn on them. Most of the stalks are thin, less than a quarter inch and there may be 200 to the square yard making it difficult to both cut with the pruner or even reach in with the chain saw. Christian has a machine that looks like an outboard motor that he wears in a harness and he basically sticks it in the brush and obliterates it into fine fibers. I worked with pruners and a chainsaw and for six long hours we battled that brush.

When the sky started to turn dark at around six we said perhaps just this small section but at that moment there was a flash of lightning and seconds later a roll of ominous thunder. We looked at each other and said simultaneously, “I think we’re done here for the day!”

That night I made a dinner of fresh tomatoes and mozzarella di bufala with a little baguette and some balsamic vinaigrette. A glass of wine and a book took me through the rest of the evening and I went to bed at 11:30. I did walk around in the gathering dusk to take some photos…the light just seemed pleasant and the air fresh after the storm. It was another good day.

Back home again...

April 2nd, 2009

I wanted to arrive at CDG early enough to catch the 7:25 train to Montpellier. I used Rail Europe to purchase my “Anytime, Anywhere” France pass (which sounds more like a service Elliot Spitzer would be in need of), and once I cleared customs (hah, “Cleared” is the wrong word…there wasn’t a soul there when I arrived, not even inspectors) I made short work of the short walk to the train station in CDG. I was trackside by 7:10 with my International Herald Tribune touting the economic summit in London and the handsome and intelligent face of the US President on its cover….thank God some things do change.

But I never read the paper. I got on the train, saw to my bags, sat down and nodded off. I remained that way until we passed Lyon and then I got nervous that I would sleep through my stop in Montpellier so I stayed awake gazing at the rain outside in a state of near exhaustion. We arrived about 10 minutes early at 11:35 am into Montpellier and I hauled myself and my baggage up to meet Christian, who was picking me up.

By 12:30 I was sitting with he and Corinne over a hot lunch and planning the rest of my day which included at least a few hours of nap time. In the rain that would have been conscionable but by now the clouds had cleared and in their place was nothing but warm Mediterranean sun. So, first some provisioning in Sommiere. I thought. Driving to and from Sommiere I could feel the fatigue creep through me, into every muscle and fiber. By the time I reached the farm and opened it up, leaving the door open to ensure a good airing, I was running on fumes, despite the glowing sunlight. I finally lay down at 5:00 pm for a nap that had seemed a long time coming.

I woke at 8:00 pm and made my way to Christian and Corinne’s for dinner where we spoke of the work to be done this week and who I should be seeing. It all went by in a flash and by 11:30 I was home in bed again with no thought of reading anything. Still, a few pages of “Travels with Charlie” by John Steineck saw me to sleep.

Another spring in France...

April 1st, 2009

If there is a better way to start off a traveling adventure I don’t know what it is. I say that because I participated in a tasting of twenty-five wines from around the world at Dancing Bear Imports in the Bronx just a few hours before my plan was to leave from JFK. Now I suppose the tasting could have occurred in Tuscany or Australia or even in California and it might have been better but after five tastes it really didn’t matter where we were. Of course I spit most of it out (remembering flights where too much alcohol was consumed where the brain expands at a faster rate than the skull…) but still there was the “remark-ability” of tasting so many great wines.

Having said that the only things I can remark upon about the flight are a) it’s the first time I left so early in the day (and arrived so early into Charles de Gaulle at 6:00 am) which resulted in it being harder to sleep, b) Air France is so superior in its amenities on transatlantic flights in coach that there really is no competition, which got me to thinking about the differing sets of expectations that each home market has driven in to the culture of their home airlines (they could no more serve bad food or wine on Air France than they could forget to fuel up, while American Airlines serves up yet another rasher of dry biscuits and assorted nuts and charges for a beverage) and c) no matter all the planning in the world it is just bad luck to be seated near a cranky child and parent with not one whit of parenting skill, of course it is the devil’s own curse to be seated with one in front and one behind as I was on this flight (which is why I once again praise Air France and their personal video system which allowed me to watch three of their 12 movie offerings since sleep was out of the question.

To finish up the last trip before we start the next.....

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Somehow the mind never really sleeps, or at least it seems to be able to set its own alarms about those things in life that are important. In any event and despite the tomb like darkness of the stone farmhouse, I started up fully awake at 5 am and hit the ground running. I knew I had an afternoon train to Paris and so much had yet to be done. Outside the dawn arrived in its usual splendour, all yellow and glowing like a golden, buttered pancake ready for the eating. There are certainly days here when I like to revel in it, soak myself in the timelessness of old stones and life remerging from a deep winter. And then there are days with freight train like agendas that just seem to drive forward laser like…damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead.

Today was like that. Clean up the house, do the dishes, put everything away, finish the last of the laundry, hang it to dry, put up the dustcovers on everything. Lock doors, batten down hatches, plant the new roses and strawberries, find a place for the new camellia and forsythia, finish hanging the new shutters, lock the materials away, load up the wine for air freighting, take a long, hot, luxurious shower out side. Linger over that! Ok, good! Finally done and ready to go! Off to deliver the wine to the airport.

Arriving at the airport I reach for my wallet. Its not there! Damn, I think through all my actions of the past 12 hours. It’s in my jeans hanging on the back of the chair at the farm. OH MY GOD! I have 2 hours to go get my wallet, get the wine shipped at the airport and make it to the train in downtown Montpellier! And there are 75 km to cover along the way. Well, for those of you that know me you know the outcome, I of course made it with some minutes to spare…you might even say that I relaxed a little at the train station.

A comfortable ride to Paris, a harrowing trip through several train/metro/RER stops and I arrived at Herve de Montlaur’s for dinner, a little haggard and worn but hungry and ready for a glass of wine.

We spoke of the Chateau and the plans we have been working on. Had a wonderful beef stew dinner cooked by Romaine (Herve’s wife) and I went to sleep. At 6:00 am I was up and ready to go…reversing my route into Paris, as the sun came up behind the Eiffel Tower, and then on to Charles de Gaulle for the flight home. What a trip! So much ground covered, so much wine consumed, so many wonderful moments and of course a great deal of opportunity for thought, for letting the mind wander as it will. This I think is the great advantage of travel, the unadorned, unfettered time to think freely on whatever subject comes to mind. No set chores to do, no routine to become mired in (its Thursday Honey, we always have dinner at the club on Thursday!) just unalloyed beautifully free time!

Home at last! There’s no place like home!