Sheep demonstrating tranquility.

Yahoooooo!

I called Roger this morning. He thought I was calling because I had received a letter he had sent me detailing the ongoing mess that is our water canal. But I hadn't.

Roger and the neighbors, managed to divert the water from our basin into a small bypass canal that sends the water into the river. Now the water is not coming into our basin and it isn't going to the Count's basin either.

The blacksmith claims that our "gate" that we would like to open to drain our basin, while still letting water flow to the Count, will not open because it it broken. And he can't work on the gate because there is still a lot of water in our basin. I suspect he just doesn't want to leave his cozy forge and work outside in the wet and the below freezing weather.

So I just purchased a plane ticket to fly out next week and sort out the mess.

However, after I purchased the ticket, I remembered that the Paris Agricultural Show, the creme de la creme of county and state fairs was going on the beginning of March. UNFORTUNATELY, it ends the 6th of March. I couldn't find a reasonably priced ticket that left before the 6th of March.

I cannot express how disappointed I am that I would be able to see the chic sheep. But I am thrilled to be flying to France for a short visit to my own sheep.

Doux comme un agneau. 

Cirq . . . the cat we tried to kill but learned to love.

Get A Sheep

The other day, my husband was telling me about a friend he was consoling through a mid-life crisis. I made a remark which my husband considered flippant, "He needs a sheep," I said.

But I was serious. This man was distraught because he was looking for love and tranquility and having reached his fifties, he had found neither. A sheep would bring him love and tranquility . . . objectives which are illusory to the great majority.

Then I started thinking, what if the purpose of animals on this earth was not to feed us, after all Adam and Eve were vegetarians before they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden, but what if animals are our guides, our connections to the spirit world? This is what ancient cultures believed. And what if our disdain for the animals is the reason we can't connect to the Universe, to God, to the Great Spirit, to Allah, whatever you call the master of your soul. We can't connect because we ignore the spirit lessons the animals have to teach us.

We slaughter them, we eat them, we hunt them down until they are extinct. We are destroying the secrets they have to reveal. An animal can teach us that peace only comes when we discard the ego . . . when we learn patience and accept everything . . . the good the bad the awful the beautiful the estatic the sublime.

Animals heal us spiritually but they also heal us physically. A few years ago, a study done in Germany demonstrated that children raised on farms with animals didn't have asthma. And the conclusion the researchers made was that humans had evolved side by side with animals through the millennia, and that we humans required this symbiotic relationship for our health and well-being. Specifically, the humans raised around sheep and cow manure do not get asthma!

Look at all the studies that show that depression in the elderly can be aleviated if the patient acquires a dog.

Humans need nature. The asphalt and the box stores are killing us. To find yourself you need to lay in the decaying leaves of the woods and the soft moss, as you gaze up through the tree branches at the floating clouds while a sheep lays her head on your abdomen and breathes softly. That's peace. That's where you'll find your soul. Lying in the moist throbbing embrace of Nature.

Animals do get their revenge. The first thing the doctor tells you when you end up in the ICU unit is to lay off the meat . . . and get out and walk. In other words than I have put forth here, get out and enjoy Nature and learn to love mammals . . . that's what will save you.

Francine finding love and tranquility in the woods with the sheep. 

Blanche, and the late Olympia, standing guard at the Moulin. 

Freedom Fries, part deux

I'm off to jury duty so I have to cheat this morning and let you be amused by comedian Andy Borowitz's coverage of Bush's visit with Jacques Chirac:

From:
"Borowitzreport.com"

FREEDOM FRIES SHOCKER

February 24, 2005

MILLIONS OF FRENCHMEN CELEBRATE END TO 'FREEDOM FRIES 'Cries of 'Vive Bush!' Heard Throughout Paris

After President George W. Bush signaled an end to calling French fries "Freedom Fries" at a dinner with French president Jacques Chirac this week, millions of jubilant Frenchmen poured into the streets in demonstrations of euphoria reminiscent of the end of World War II. Cries of "Vive Bush!" could be heard from the rooftops of Paris as French citizens celebrated the end to two years of living under the cruel yoke of "Freedom Fries" derision.

"I was angry at President Bush for invading Iraq," said accordion player Fernand Daubigny, 37. "But this more than makes up for it."

A new survey released today reflected the grateful mood of the French, as President Bush topped the poll as the most popular figure in modern France.According to the survey, Mr. Bush garnered a whopping 92% approval rating, compared to 89% for singer Edith Piaf and 84% for actor Jerry Lewis.

But even as the mass celebrations kicked into high gear, critics of Mr. Chirac said that the French president had given up too much in order to secure Mr. Bush's promise to stop calling French fries by the derogatory name.Specifically, the newspaper Le Monde accused Mr. Chirac of agreeing to train Iraqi troops and grant billions of dollars in debt relief in exchange for the lifting of the "Freedom Fries" tag. For his part, Mr. Chirac today defended his decision: "French fries are an important source of French national pride, even though they actually came from Belgium."

Elsewhere, days after her cell phone was hacked, French authorities said they were baffled as to why anyone would want to know more about Paris Hilton.

Yes, I've found Paradise. 

Breasts

As you've been reading my posts you can see that when I'm in the U.S., I don't have a lot of cute stories about France to tell you. So you'll just have to bear with me until I return there in the spring.

When I was down in Southern California last week, having dinner with my husband's two brothers and their wives, somehow, the discussion turned to breast implants. For those of you who know me well, I am adamant that I was not the one who initially brought the subject up. But we were in Southern California so it isn't odd that the topic would surface at dinnertime.

I made the comment that at the age of forty-six, I had just started liking my breasts. As I said this I felt surprise, contentment and happiness that I had finally reached the point where I could honestly make that comment.

But over the past few days, as I've been thinking about that revelation, I get a little angry as I think about how rough society is on girls and women because for at least three decades, I didn't like my breasts. They were too small. They weren't large and jutting like Barbie's, they weren't huge and glossy like the ones in Playboy spreads, they weren't big enough to catch anyone's attention. Therefore, I wasn't quite a woman.

And, to make matters worse, my last name rhymes with flat and all through junior high, when humans are just becoming cruel, I was called Flat Pratt. I would come home crying because I didn't wear a bra at the age of thirteen.

(Of course, I could have remedied the situation by getting breast implants, but since my mother had a masectomy when I was in college, I had developed this unfounded fear of knives slicing into my breasts. Call me crazy.)

My mother, who had big breasts, told me that men who like big breasts are insecure and have a mother-fetish.

My father tried to be helpful and comforting by pointing out that all the girls who had big breasts in his high school went on to become prostitutes. Admittedly, there weren't too many career choices for women in 1948, but I always doubted his story. Yes, quite a few of the girls who had big breasts in my junior high ended up getting pregnant early in their lives; a fact that just proved my point, that boys preferred big breasts to small ones.

Somewhere along the line, I heard the rumor that French men preferred women whose individual breasts could comfortably fit in a champagne glass. And perhaps, that is where the idea of France, and all the elegance and sophistication it represented, grabbed hold of my consciousness.

Maybe I wasn't really interested in recreating my childhood on a farm. Perhaps I was driven to France because the country has an affinity for small breasted women.

And it all fits -- my new found love of my breasts has come about because I'm spending half of my year living in France, a land plastered with ads adorned with naked, small breasted women.

Yes, I've found Paradise.

Oh, heavens, another faux pas!

I post this only to show that President Bush not only offended the French, who have a mistaken reputation as being up-tight, but that he also offended those New Europeans, the Slovakians who are supposed to be laid back.

http://http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050224/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_wardrobe_malfunction_1

The French and the Americans can learn to live happily and peacefully together.

George's European Vacation

Here's an interesting "diary" of President Bush's trip to Europe, from the BBC. To understand its maximum import, scroll down to the bottom of the article and read Day 1 first then continue through Day 3.

http://http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4290241.stm

Slowly, the writer comes under the spell of Europe . . . rather miraculous from someone who is clearly a British Europhobe . . . calling Brussels dreary! Pooh!

The overweight American reporters are starting to get on his nerves . . .complaining about the great European cuisine, wishing they had hamburgers . . . some national stereotypes just won't go away.

French family about to eat fried potatoes. 

Freedom Fries

Ah, the faux pas minefield of visiting other cultures with which you are unfamiliar.

Bush met with Chirac yesterday in Brussels, and while the U.S. press is acting as if the two are kissing and making up, according to my friend Nathalie, the French press is saying that the two are still very cold with each other.

New York Times:
http://http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/22/international/europe/22france.html?8bl

LeMonde:
http://http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3214,36-399043,0.html

Bush and most Americans probably think that the U.S. President was being good-natured when he said, in reference to Chirac, that he was looking for a good cowboy. However, that is a derogatory term in Europe. It's what they derisively call Bush, meaning that he's not-intelligent, that he shoots first, and asks questions later. The French are also very aware that if the owner of a ranch is looking for a cowboy that he's simply looking for a hired hand. So, in other words, Bush insulted Chirac.

The Times also revealed that an American source said that Bush called the fried potatoes served at his dinner with Chirac, French fries -- to show that there weren't any hard feelings against the French any more. You'll remember that French toast and French fries were renamed Freedom fries and Freedom toast on Air Force One and in the Congressional cafeterias in protest against the French not supporting the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Well if you want to appear suave, don't go into a restaurant in France and order French fries. The French think it's very strange when Americans call their pomme frites, French fries because they aren't French, the dish comes from Belgium. So Bush's comment about French fries simply served as a reminder of the animosity that America flung at the French because France didn't support the Iraq War.

Another hint: if you want to appear sophisticated, when in France, don't use the term French bread. My husband's cousin told me that when he was a kid, and his diplomat father was stationed in Paris, he went to the dentist with a piece of bread crust lodged in his gums or between his teeth. He told the dentist that it was French bread. The dentist said, "Here, all the bread is French."

Dead sheep killed by a gluttonous coyote. 

McDonalds' Intensive Care Unit

I returned last night after spending five days with my father-in-law in the McDonald's Restaurants' Intensive Care Unit. (That's not it's real name but the company would be an appropriate sponsor for the place.)

For a long time, I've been trying to eat in a more healthy manner, and as I endlessly repeat on this blog, you get what you want -- my ICU vacation was the appropriate prod I needed to enthusiastically embrace the French way of eating when I'm in the U.S.:

• smaller portions
• lots of fruits and vegetables
• no processed foods

My father-in-law is ninety-one-years old, thin, and in good physical shape. His heart is finally wearing out, and so the doctors will install a pacemaker. The observations which follow, regarding diet and weight don't pertain to my father-in-law. Someday, no matter how well one takes care of oneself, the body and mind fall apart and sadly, that is what's happening with my father-in-law.

However, it was frightening to see that there are many people in the ICU ward who are middle aged, overweight and don't exercize. I overheard several cardiologists lecturing their patients and their patients' families on the necessity to alter their lifestyles. Diet and exercize. Diet and exercize. Diet and exercize. That's the mantra. There isn't a magic pill. There isn't even any long lasting major surgery that will solve the problems that a bad diet and lack of exercize cause.

In the Third World, people are starving to death. In the United States, people are eating themselves to death. It's called gluttony, and it's ugly.The ICU was filled with overweight people in their fifties and sixties. There were many people who were diabetic and had heart trouble and recent limb amputations. I would suggest that if you're trying to lose weight and are thinking of spending money on a spa, you should save your money, and experience a more immediate transformation by simply sitting in the cardiac ward of a hospital.

When I was waiting at the gate for my plane to take off, I looked around at the people sitting there and at least half of them were eating something. Where did we get the idea that we have to be eating constantly? We get it from the television and the constant advertising that shows happy, skinny people eating. McDonald's brings you Nirvana with their HAPPY meal. Happiness is always at hand if we're putting food in our mouth.

But health, and the happiness engendered by good health, can be found in consuming less food and ignoring all the food that is advertised on television. Watch the commercials, nothing that is healthy for you is advertised on television. Nothing.

Once again, corporations and the consumption they cheerlead are dangerous for you. And remember, if you can walk to the bathroom and wipe yourself today, it's a good day for which you should be thankful.

Be Back Next Week

I am flying out this afternoon to Los Angeles to keep my father-in-law company in the hospital. He did have a stoke and a heart attack.

I won't have access to a computer while I'm down there, but will start posting again when I return on Sunday.

A friend of mine, not the one I'm writing about in the post below, with a heart rock found on the Elwha River -- The River of Love. It was the first river in the United States to have both of its dams removed. http://www.nps.gov/olym/issues/issdam.htm

Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls

I received the most amazing Valentine from my husband. A huge chocolate heart that serves as the BOX for the chocolates inside. When I first saw it, I was overjoyed, just thinking that it was a huge hollow chocolate heart and wondering how I would eat it all. But then my husband pointed out that I should open it up. It was filled with the most beautiful and yummy chocolates made by local choclatier extraordinaire, Joseph Schmidt. It's the best Valentine I've ever received. (And they were American chocolates! Quelle surprise!)

Sadly, our sweet little evening came to an early and crashing end when we received news that my husband's father was taken to the hospital Valentine's morning. His housekeeper had found him babbling incoherently. He's in intensive care and from what the doctors can determine at the moment, he's had a stroke and perhaps a coronary in addition. I volunteered to go down and stay with him, because I'm the only one in the family who has the flexibility to do so, and will probably fly down today. I'm waiting to get a report from the relatives who are with him now. So if you don't hear from me until next week, it's because I'm in Los Angeles without access to a computer.

My father-in-law is a great guy who is ninety-one, and hasn't had any health problems until the last two years. His health started to go bad just a few months before his wife died. My husband just spoke with him on Saturday and my father-in-law told him that he was excited about and planning on staying with us in France this summer. He visited for a month two years ago and really enjoyed the lifestyle, the neighbors, and the countryside. Even though he doesn't speak French, the neighbors made every effort to make him feel welcome . . . speaking English or Spanish to him, or letting me translate in my inadequate French. They listened respectfully and attentively to his remembrances of D-Day and World War II. At one party, he was surrounded by young women who were quizzing him about World War II in English. He especially enjoyed all the "kissing" that everyone bestowed upon him in greeting and departing.

That's another aspect of French life that's refreshingly different than in the U.S. The French respect elderly people.

When he arrived at the moulin in early July, he was dressed in heavy wool clothes. By the time he left, he was walking around in his t-shirt. It was abnormally hot that summer, but we feel that the change in his internal temperature came about because we put some fat on his bones by feeding him the typical French cuisine. He had been on a low fat diet in the U.S. So when he returned to the U.S. he wasn't cold anymore . . . for a few months anyway, until he went back on his low taste, low pleasure, low fat diet.

Did I mention before that the only thing that matters in life is love . . . seasoned with good food and friends?

Yesterday was a day for bad news, as I received an e-mail from a friend telling me that a high school friend of mine was in the hospital in Montana, going in and out of a coma.

The older I get, the more I believe in fate. I believe that control over your life is an illusion. My friends will debate me for a while, but they can never argue away the fact that illness and death strip away the myth of self-determination that Americans are erroneously obsessed with. If you're a big believer in self-determination, I suggest you go debate with Roger or my husband's father, or any of the other men who have had their lives altered by war. Call up someone in Iraq right now, an Iraqi, an American soldier, an insurgent . . . they'll set you straight about fate and your illusions of control.

My friend was a beautiful, athletic, academic young woman in high school. She came from one of the best families in town. She had absolutely everything going for her. Then, when she was in college she was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Her life was put on hold while she battled that plague, but she eventually went on to get a PhD in psychology. She hung out her shingle and started practice. Her movements were slightly affected, she had been slightly paralyzed on one side of her body. Her perfect looks were gone. But she shouldered on and has always been an inspiration to me.

Eight years ago, another tumor showed up in her brain. This one was benign. However, while in the hospital she developed an infection and lapsed into a coma for eight months. She had to have an operation on her feet because she hadn't used them in so long, and then she had to learn to walk again.

My friend's experiences are the experiences of everyone of us. Slowly, everyday, but our egos don't want to admit it, we fade away. We're perfect, we're looking hot, and then one day the wrinkles show up, or the hair falls out, or our joints start hurting and we start our slow descent into the grave. We, the healthy arrogantly, run around fooling ourselves that we're different, we're in good health, we've got good genes, we take care of ourselves, we eat right, et al, ad nauseum. What illnesses and catastrophies befall our friends won't knock on our door.

But we're only fooling ourselves. There's a car wreck with our name on it. There's a bullet reserved for us. There's a terminal disease brewing inside us. Or, if you successfully outrun the accident- crime - disease gamut there's that extremely patient fucker waiting at the finish line: Monsieur Old Age. He doesn't care that you ate salmon and tofu morning noon and night, jogged all those miles or spent thousands of dollars on on those face lifts, he's got a rendez-vous with you, and it's chiselled, not penciled, into his organizer.

So what's a girl or boy to do?
All you can do is love, love, love.
Life's too short to be afraid of eating chocolate.

And here's evidence that the folks in the Social Security Administration want to hasten your exit:
http://http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/02/15/BAGU1BB1S81.DTL

Amour 

Love Is All There Is

Water Update
I received an e-mail from Corinne this morning. Roger asked her to send me an update. She reported that Roger closed the vanne leading into our basin and diverted the incoming water to the river. However, the water hasn't gone down enough for the forgeron to come in and repair the vanne at the moulin. Stay tuned.

Because Roger told her I wanted to know if there was any report from WATER ATTORNEY #1 regarding the appelate court hearing, Corrine opened a letter from the attorney which said the court will give their decision on March 8th. Stay tuned.


Everyone, French and American, asks me why I wanted a farm in France. And I tell them that I wanted to recreate my childhood on the farm in Ohio. When I was a kid there were still quant little towns in the midwest, with real live shopkeepers, that provided almost every service you needed. Milk was delivered to your house in bottles. I walked down a long lane, past the cows, past the horses, past the sheep, to catch the school bus each morning. I had a German Shepherd, named Freida who kept watch over me. If I was hungry, I could just grab an apple off a tree in the orchard or go in the kitchen to see what my mother was baking. My father came home for lunch every day from work.

I lived in the Garden of Eden.

Of course there was a war raging in Vietnam, and tens of thousands of people were being killed while I skipped around the farm, building tree houses, sewing Barbie doll clothes, feeding bum lambs. The world was a mess, and while I always thought that I could change it, I failed and I'm very sorry for that.

Instead of following the route of Ghandi, or Gloria Steinem, or Martin Luther King, (notice how people who really change the world for the better are often murdered) I chose the coward's way out and frantically searched out a little haven that came close to recreating the set of my idyllic childhood.

I didn't exactly know for what I was searching. I just wanted some land that actually produced a crop, with WATER flowing through it, and a woods. I only desired to escape the world I couldn't change.

The place I ended up with surpassed my dreams. On my little postage stamp of France the honey and the wine flow freely and my sheep graze peacefully with no shadow of the butcher's knife hovering over them; it's a place where people pay attention to what older women have to say, hell, we're even desirable sex partners; it's a place where silicone breasts have not invaded; it's a place where factory-excreted food is disdained; it's a place where a man who tears down McDonald's is a national hero; it's a place where "intellectuals" are revered and the majority of the population regularly goes to the theatre, or opera, or symphony, or dance performance when it comes to their town; it's a place where everyone has good health care; a place where you can walk on endless paths that wander through forests, vineyards, pastures, and little villages with your unleashed sheep following behind.

In short, my little cottage and farm is everything I didn't know that I deeply wanted. How lucky I am to have stumbled upon what truly makes me happy. All my youthful, disappointing expectations were created by Madison Avenue. But, the joyful bounty I now possess springs from by soul's refusal to accept the trash, the agenda, the dreck, that the media, the politicians, the corporations want me to devour.

We're on this big roller-coaster called life and it's too short to spend it not doing exactly what you want to be doing . So be selfish. Listen to your soul. Drown in love. That's what you really want . . . all your work, all your actions, all your thoughts, are trying to lead you to a place where all there is is love and acceptance.

When I'm laying in bed at night with my husband, and he's already asleep, I like to put my arm around his chest to feel his heart beat and his lungs breathe, and I get teary eyed because I realize that some day, his heart won't beat, and my heart won't beat. And then I hug him tighter because I'm so happy that I have this grand moment where all that exists is love.

That's it folks, that's the secret to life: love. Surrender to it.

Our house in the snow. The moulin is the three-story building behind the car.

St. Roger helping us clean up after a dinner party. 

Neige

According to the weather report on www.lemonde.fr, it's snowing on our little farm. For my daily French lesson, I print out an article from LeMonde and translate it.

Roger told me yesterday that Blanche and Soixante-Douze are doing well. He spoke with the girls when the forgeron came over Friday night to look at the vanne.

Whenever the sheep hear a car pull in, or a door or shutter open on the house, they run to the corner of their pasture that's closest to the house. Then Blanche yells at the visitor, not because she's playing the role of guard-sheep, but because she thinks that they might bring her a bucket of grain.

Corinne, the caretaker, has the flu, and so her son has been coming down to care for the sheep and the cats. Roger told me that the boy couldn't close the door to the moulin, it has a huge key that looks like it would open the door to a castle, and it's sometimes moody. So St. Roger had to go over and help. I think he's been over to our house four times this past week performing some sort of unpaid task on our behalf.

If you're buying a property in France, make sure that you have a Saint living nearby to save you from all your trials and tribulations. I really don't know how we'd survive without Roger.

Blanche and the late Olympia looking at an EMPTY basin and our chateau. 2004 

Farmer's Market

I called Roger this morning to get a report on the flooding problem in Serge's noyer. Roger had the forgeron come out and look at the vanne and in order for the forgeron to fix it, they have to drain the water out of the canal by closing off another vanne at the head of the basin, and letting the water run down an auxillary canal into the river.

I asked Roger to please complete the repair quickly because I didn't need to agitate the Crotchety Count at the end of the canal by turning off the water flow.

I was happy to hear from Roger that Serge and his father-in-law are not angry with us, YET. The water level in their noyer has gone down, and instead of having standing water, they just have boue (mud). So this is sort of good news, as it means that the problem was starting to repair itself.

Unfortunately, because it's warming up, we have to shut off the flow of water, because we can't take the chance that the trees will die. We have to get the roots "dried" out before the trees start budding.

My husband informed me that when I return to France, my first job is to take the new week whacker he bought me for my birthday and clean out the canal. Then we'll try to slowly bring up the water level. Hopefully, the silt brought in by the flowing water will continue to repair the leaks.

My husband and I walked to the San Francisco Farmer's Market. I didn't want to go, but he insisted. While this market is a nice affair, and it does promote organic goods, it isn't like the bonafide outdoor markets back in France. There's something too high-end and polished about the San Francisco version; and in fact, a majority of the booths are just offshoots of the trendy stores that are located in the newly renovated Ferry Building.

There were no barefoot, shirtless Dutchmen selling biologique vegetables and flowers. There was no cheese man flirting with all the ladies as his wife smiles at his side because he brings in so much business. There were no ninety-five-year old toothless men selling the garlic they had grown and braided themselves.

At this farmer's market, the biggest lines, naturally because we're in America, are at the booths serving up prepared food. And, quelle horreur, people are eating the food on the spot. In my little town in France, the biggest lines are for the cheese or fish vendors. One time I was walking around eating an apple I had bought at the French market, and at least three French people said bon appetit to me . . . which I interpreted to mean, can't you wait until you get home to eat your voracious American?. If you'll remember from my earlier musings, the French think that it is uncivilized to eat while standing up . . . only animals eat while standing.

Read this NYTimes article about some of the reasons French women don't get fat.
http://http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/books/review/06REEDL.html?ex=1108357200&en=e43abac13262ae4f&ei=5070

As much as I try to not eat while standing, I can't give up the nasty habit, as evidenced by the fact that my husband and I walked around the market wolfing down a bag of sun-dried Mandarin oranges. They make great snacks as they're crunchy like potato chips and they're sweet but tangy . . . a fantastic alternative to candy.

A woman walking by me asked if they were good. Maybe she was of French origin and just passive-aggressively commenting on my rude behavior, but since everyone around us was eating something, I didn't interpret her comment as judgmental, and so I gave her an orange slice.

After wandering around the market, behaving like animals, my husband and I walked to the Financial District and had a very enjoyable lunch, sitting at the counter, and eating fish at Tadich Grill. After lunch, we parted ways. I'm going to paint pictures of my sheep; he'll wander around in the sun and then end up at his favorite coffee house talking politics.

Our New Buck for Blanche! 

More Water Follies and Updates . . .

Well, we received an e-mail from our OTHER WATER attorney telling us that the flooding in Serge's noyer (walnut grove) is our responsibility. It was a good French lesson to decipher the three page legal opinion.

So at 4:30am, my time, this morning I called Roger and asked him to open up the little dam, or vanne, to our basin. He said that Serge's noyer is still flooded. Roger will call the forgeron, or blacksmith, who made and installed the vanne last summer. The night before we left France, my husband and I accidentally jammed the vanne so it can't move up or down.

Roger was happy that we finally realized the flooding problem is our responsibility. I will call him tomorrow, seven p.m. his time, to see what the forgeron had to say.

The Count's appellate case was heard on the first of February. We have not received a report back from our ORIGINAL WATER attorney nor from the AVOE we had to hire to plead our case in front of the appellate court.

Oh, I forgot to tell you that the day after we left France, one of our neighbors was walking through our property and saw that water was flowing profousely out of a pipe on the side of our house. He called Corinne, our housekeeper/caretaker/mediator and she came down from the village on a Sunday night. Again, poor St. Roger was pressed into service to help her figure out how to shut off the water to the house. (No wonder he's threatening to move into town into an assisted living center!)

The pipe to the outside faucet had burst in the freezing weather. We're thankful it wasn't an interior pipe. But that must be next . . . or maybe we'll be swept away in a flood. My zodiac sign is an earth sign but my husband, he's the problem, for he's a PISCES!!!!!! A Pisces should never buy a water mill in France.