Beau eating flowers from my young friend Marleyna back in July . . . before the weather got rotten and one could wear sundresses and not turtleneck sweaters as I'm doing today! 

The Husband's New Personal Assistant

Seems the Husband read my blog, clicked on the hedgehog website link and read about how friendly the little buggers are. Then he stole the hedgehog from Antoinette. The hedgehog has a fancy new cage with a wheel and a little house, and runs around the Husband's desk all day. Here she is answering the phone.

The personal assistant taking a little nap at her work station.

The Hedgehog

Over The Hedge

I was in the kitchen making lunch. Antoinette was lying under the table and Attila was lying next to the stove. Attila decided to get up and visit Antoinette who started growling at him.

I looked down to chastise Antoinette and saw that she had a balled-up hedgehog in her mouth! I let out a slight scream and ran to get the Husband so he could see what weirdness was taking place in our kitchen.

Here's a website for hedgehog lovers.

Supposedly hedgehogs make good pets and enjoy playing with humans. But the Husband went out to play with it and said he can't understand how anyone would enjoy playing with a hedgehog as it has sticky quills that prick the skin.

(No hedgehogs were killed in the making of this blog entry.)

Antoinette at the bottom of the scaffolding. 

Thought I better post a photo of Lambchop before he isn't a lamb anymore. I had a horrible lambing record this year . . . four dead . . . Lambchop is the only survivor. 

"Blackie" sort of being accepted by the flock. 

The Vanishing American Vacation

Here's the Last Chance for Democracy Cafe's analysis of a New York Times' article about the lamentable fact that Americans just aren't taking long vacations any more.

I just walked in the door after spending three days in Paris where I hardly heard a French word spoken. The Parisiens are on vacation; leaving their city to be overrun with ITALIANS! Alitalia must have had an August fare sale.

Next time we're taking Attila and Antoinette . . . Paris is a city that loves dogs. Dogs in restaurants. Dogs in dog apparel stores. There were dogs everywhere I looked . . . marking car tires, standing in line for ice cream, getting groomed. The street that leads to the Louvre and runs along the Seine is filled with stores that sell dogs.

I can tell I've become a dog person, as I never noticed those shops before in all my previous visits to Paris.

Blackie the lost lamb. 

Blackie

I don’t know if she’s a sheep. Her “baaaa” sounds like a goat to me – she looks strange, as if she’s a goat, crossed with a sheep, crossed with a dog, and a deer thrown in the mix; but everyone has been calling her a sheep. The phone calls came on Friday. “There’s a black sheep running with a mastiff dog. Is it yours?” Monsieur Dupuis asked the Husband.

I was strapping on my bike gear when The Husband came outside and told me that I needed to go talk to Monsieur Dupuis.

I sighed heavily. I was in a big hurry to get to town before the bakery closed. Couldn’t it wait? “No, you should see what’s up.”

I rode my bike to Dupuis’, his door was open. I knocked, but he was talking on the telephone. I continued into town.

While I was gone, Corinne called the Husband, “There’s a black sheep running around with a big dog. Is it yours?”

I was certain I knew who the owner of the dog and sheep was: the “hillbilly” that lives up on the hill behind us, next to my good friend Pierre-Yves. The woman has six children with six different men. She has a huge scary Pitbull-like dog that people around here term a Mastiff and she has an Australian cattle dog. The two of them range around our area all day, every day. Antoinette has to be on the pill because of the huge Pitbull/Mastiff male.

The Husband and I met Madame Hillbilly for the first time a few weeks ago, at a restaurant where she cooks. The British waitress, an Amis des Chats woman, asked us if we wanted to take in a six month old puppy. I asked what breed it was and she said it was some sort of Australian dog that was good with sheep. “It’s a purebred?” I asked.

“Well, maybe it’s a mix,” she replied.
“Well, let me know what mix it is,” I said while gulping down my moules.

I thought that would end the discussion of the dog. The waitress left; then quickly returned. “It’s an Australian Cattle Dog and a Mastiff mix,” she reported. “It belongs to our cook.”

Immediately, I knew who the proud parents of the puppy were: the dogs that harass me and the sheep wherever we walk. They’re so nasty that I carry large rocks to ward them off should they come at us. Over the years I’ve learned that they’re more bark than bite, but still they’re nasty and scary when we walk near them. I told the British waitress that, NO! I didn’t want the offspring of those two. All my sheep would be dead within a week.

My refusal didn’t stop the British woman in her quest to place the unwanted dog. “He lives with sheep,” she replied.

“He does?” I asked incredulously. I had never seen sheep at that place, and the woman’s yard was so filled with junk that I couldn’t imagine her being organized enough to raise sheep. (Hell, I’m not organized enough to raise sheep. I didn’t see how a woman with a full-time job, six children, and many different lovers could possibly do it. She’s a veritable Martha Stewart I thought.)

So then the Renaissance Woman herself came out of the kitchen to bring us her phone number and tell us how well the dog gets along with the sheep.

“Where’d you get the sheep I asked?”

“Someone just gave them to me,” she replied. “They’re very little and black.”

I had no intention of looking at her puppy, but to be polite in that passive-aggressive way that is so insincere and so British, I took the phone number she handed me. On the way out of the restaurant, I told the British waitress that she should use her Amis des Chats funds to castrate the cook’s dog. “I’ve told her she needs to do it,” she sighed, “but these French just don’t want to sterilize their animals.”

“Well, he roams all over our area and he’s a nuisance I said. Castrating him would stop that.”

“I know,” she agreed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“I can probably take up a fund with the neighbors to get him castrated,” I said.

“I’ll let her know that.”

As we walked out of the restaurant, the Husband said, “Why is castration your solution to everything?” I smiled broadly and briefly considered running for President of the United States on a castration solves all problems platform.

A week later . . . the British waitress shows up at our house. She was scheduled to drop off two wild kittens that she had sterilized at the vet’s. When she arrived she had some bad news. One of the kittens had died under anesthesia and she thought it would traumatize the surviving kitten too much if it was left in a strange place. So she was going to take it back to the house where she found it. “The woman will have a fit, but I think it’s the best thing to do for the kitten.” I nodded my head in agreement while thinking that she was nuts.

“Oh, I told our cook about your offer of castrating her dog and she got very angry,” the waitress informed me. “She said her dog doesn’t wander. I asked her how she knows that her dog stays home when she’s at work all day and she got angry at me.”

I grimaced. Now the cook at one of my favorite bargain restaurants was mad at me. I certainly couldn’t eat there in the future. Who knows what she’d put in my food.

Another week later . . . yesterday . . . around 6:30 am . . .the Husband and I are sleeping soundly. We hear a loud lamb bleating outside the window. I get up and look outside. (I love hanging out the screen-less windows in my negligee. I feel so French.) “There’s a black lamb outside and the dogs are just laying there, looking at it,” I report back to the Husband as I crawl back in bed.

The Husband, quite curious, got up to see for himself, then spent an hour chasing the lamb around until he was finally able to grab it and throw it in with our sheep.

It’s a girl. Thank goodness . . . I don’t need any more sheep testicles bobbing around the place. She has dreadlocks all over her body, as if she’s been running through the woods picking up burrs. She’s incredibly tiny.

I thought Blanche might nurture her when she stood up in her shed to go over and gently smell the new arrival. But my hopes were dashed when Blanche violently butted Blackie out of the shed. (Blackie might be changed to “Noir” in the future. And why do all my sheep, excepting Soixante-Douze, have names that start with “B?”)

Therese came over to tell us that there was a black sheep in with our sheep. She had called up Madame Moulie to see if it was her sheep and Madame Moulie replied that her phone had been ringing off the wall over the past few days because everyone in the village and the valley was calling to ask her if this errant black sheep was hers.

The Husband stopped on his way to do the bakery run to talk to the man who lives next to the one-lane bridge and has some little black sheep. No, he wasn’t missing a sheep. But he insisted on showing the Husband around his place for the next forty minutes and regaling him with stories of his life in Africa. According to the husband, we’re having the man and his wife over for dinner soon.

The man advised us to call the Gendarmes to report the lost sheep. Then, if anyone reports a missing sheep, they’ll come get it. Otherwise, Blackie is ours. If we don’t report the missing sheep, and the Gendarmes find out after someone reports their sheep missing, then we’ll be arrested for stealing.

About ten-thirty last night, the Husband was in bed, I was up playing cards with my brother and two nieces. The Husband came downstairs and informed me that he couldn’t get to sleep because the dogs were barking and Blackie was bleating loudly and that the two of us needed to go out and see what was happening. Perhaps we could thwart another fox attack.

Blackie is too big for a fox, but to humor the Husband, I went outside with him. We found Blackie in the near corner of the field with Bieberon and Biebette. The three of them were fine . . . eating grass and licking the salt blocks. However, I did note that the other white sheep were not near.

It’s interesting that Bieberon, who was initially ostracized by the white sheep group, has taken Blackie under her wing. The other snobs will eventually come around to accepting Blackie.

I have to call the Gendarmes today. We’ll all be sad if Blackie is taken away from us. Especially the Husband.

Update: Niece number two just ran in to tell me that Blanche picked up Blackie and threw him up in the air and that Beau is chasing him too!

The Husband looking handsome. 

French Gothic -- Leonce and the Husband 

The Times They Are A'Changin

Well, you know the Iraq war has gone tits up when a conservative Brit accosts you at a party, and the first thing out of his mouth is: "I can't believe you people voted for George Bush."

No "Hello, old Chap," to preface his comment.

Pity the Husband and I. Since 2003 we've had the French, politely questioning us over America's political sanity; but now, we've got the conservative, landed British hounding us.

When we go to the cello concert in our village tonight, we're wearing our Air Canada t-shirts.

If you're looking for inspiration to quit drinking . . .

Watch Mel Gibson morph from "Hunk to Drunk" via US Magazine.

This is a great essay by Deepak Chopra that might bring you calm if you're worried about wars and politics.

WhatTheH, Here's your photo of Leonce and the shepherd's shack.  

Dog Wrestling: Antoinette is pinned. 

Practicing Patience

Happy first day of August. The sky has been drizzling off and on today. Perhaps the dog days of summer are behind us.

Léonce arrived at 6am to start work. As usual, the dogs barked at him for a full fifteen minutes. As usual, the Husband and I woke up muttering our disapproval.

At eight o’clock, Léonce persistently rang the doorbell. I opened up my shutters and hung out my bedroom window.

“Are you ready to go to the quarry?” he queried.

“I told you that I was going to go there on my way to __________ (the big town), at nine. They won’t even be open yet.”

So he replied with a long explanation. I translated it to mean that he wanted me to drive him to the quarry because he needed to deal with the stone mason, because I wouldn’t be capable of such an undertaking

“So you want me to take you to the quarry?” I repeated.

“Oui.”

Okay, I’d take him to the quarry with me. I would nix the trip into the big town that I had planned with the Husband in order to end this grand ordeal of the stone lintel.

As you might recall from last summer’s postings, Léonce, Nanou, and the Husband were repairing the terrace and putting in a balustrade railing all because I had happened upon some old, inexpensive balustrades at an auction. Léonce and Nanou were going to make end pillars and the top railings for the balustrades out of concrete. I wanted them carved out of stone. They rolled their eyes and then cut off the re-bar they had laid for the concrete pillars.

I ordered four pillars and two long railings from the Portuguese stone masons. They said they’d have them the following week. They didn’t and after four return visits, alone and with the Husband, they still didn’t fill the order. I told Léonce and Nanou to go ahead and make the cement pillars and railings. They cut and reinstalled new re-bar.

Now, this summer, Léonce is building the shepherd’s hut, and last week, he reached the point where he needed a lintel for the doorway. I drove him to the quarry where we had ordered the rocks for the walls of the hut; but those men told him they didn’t carve rocks, they just dug them out of the quarry and broke them up. Léonce needed to go up the road to the stone masons. I had an uneasy feeling that we were heading towards the same Portuguese guys; and we were.

Today, because the Portuguese guys haven’t answered their phone in over a week, Léonce insisted that we go in person to see if the lintel was done. I told him it wouldn’t be.

Old people here have a habit of hitting you on the arm when they talk with you. I hated driving in the car with the previous owner of our farm because he hit my arm constantly. Léonce does the same thing. My elbow started hurting so I asked him to quit hitting me.

He agreed that he shouldn’t because “women are fragile like flowers.”

That development made the ride a little more pleasant.

He spoke rapidly, and constantly in his patois French. I understood about a third of it.

We arrived at the Portuguese guys’ place. No they hadn’t made the lintel. No, we couldn’t buy an uncut stone from them because the owner wasn’t there and they didn’t know what price to charge.

We went looking for other quarries. We checked four. They were all closed. First day of August=VACATION TIME!!!!!!!!

We gave up and were heading for home when we passed the entrance to our original rock dealer. He was open.

Léonce got out, ferreted around the quarry, found a large rock and then returned to the car. He insisted I stop reading my French novel so that I might approve of the rock he picked out. I argued with him, telling him that it wasn’t necessary for me to approve the rock. They all looked to be the same color to me . . . light burnt umber. He insisted. I rolled my eyes, sighed loudly and went to look at the rock.

I approved of the rock. But then Léonce didn’t know if it was big enough. He hadn’t brought the paper with him, and he couldn’t remember, the length measurement! I couldn’t believe that he made me drive him twenty kilometers, ruining my elbow, and wrecking the morning I had planned in the big town with the Husband.

“We’ll return this afternoon,” he told the worker. AAAGGGGHHHHH, I screamed to myself.

Back in the car, he immediately began his ceaseless chattering. I pondered what I could possibly do to make myself a more patient person. Lord knows I’ve been working on trying to shed my impatient American mien. I feel I’ve made great progress, only to be proven wrong when I’m easily driven crazy by an annoying albeit, well-meaning, overly-talkative man.

Breathe deeply. You have a lot more to learn. Léonce is here to teach you.

At least the car was headed towards home. There weren’t too many more minutes left where I needed to practice being patient. Soon I would be home, locked safely away in my bedroom where I could relax alone and read a book on Zen.

On the way to the quarries, I had made the mistake of asking where Nanou lived.

“We’ve already passed it,” Léonce had told me.

On the way home Léonce remembered my question and decided that he must show me Nanou’s house. “Take a left,” he ordered as he took off his seatbelt.

“Why are you taking off your seatbelt,” I asked in horror. “I’m not going to stop.”

“My daughter lives up here.”

“Well, I’m not going to stop,” I said. He didn’t put his seatbelt back on. As long as I was in the driver’s seat, I wasn’t going to stop. Even if his sweet daughter was out in her garden tending her flowers and looked up in fright when she heard her father screaming as I sped by, I wasn’t going to stop. Breathe deeply, I advised myself.

Léonce pointed out Nanou’s house. Great, I thought, now let’s head for home.

Then he pointed me in the direction of his daughter’s house. Why I headed that way I don’t know. I should have told him I had a roast on fire in the oven back home.

We were driving through the vineyards, through many blind intersections; intersections just like the one where Léonce recently totaled his Deux Cheveax. “Doucement, doucement,” he admonished every ten seconds. An escargot passed us on the side of the road.

Léonce pointed out his daughter’s house. Yuck. One of those awful modern atrocities, I sneered to myself. I kept my foot on the accelerator. I will pretend that I do not understand his French when he tells me to stop.

“Ah, nobody home,” he sighs wistfully.

Whew.

I drove slowly through the vineyards.

I pulled into the driveway of our farm. “Well, what time do you want to go this afternoon?” he asked.

“When you want,” I replied, too mentally beaten down to argue that we should wait until Hell freezes over.

“At three.”

“D’accord.”

It’s 14:53 now. The Husband just returned from hooking up the trailer to the car. I’m about to go out for my second lesson of the day in patience.

Antoinette