Fierce Revival

After two weeks of warm spring weather, blossoms everywhere, bees buzzing…it snowed. A lot. The balmy temperatures plummeted, and I wondered what would happen to the plants and creatures that had emerged from winter.

Blossoms emerge from a late spring snow storm Photo: PKR

It took a day or so for the snow to melt, and then I went out for a walk. It was cold, there was a brisk wind, hawks and woodpeckers hovered and swooped. No butterflies yet, but there were a few intrepid troopers, warming themselves on the path.

Readers, feel free to correct me, but I think this angry animal is a kind of rove beetle. Specifically, because of its elegant scorpion pose, I think it might be Ocypus olens, a Devil’s coach horse beetle. In any case, that’s a metal rock star name for a fearsome beetle, so I’ll take it.

A beetle gets defensive Photo: PKR

This one didn’t get as huffy when I approached, but shone in emerald iridescence beneath the late afternoon sun. I think it’s a kind of tiger beetle, but which kind?

A tiger beetle minding its own business Photo: PKR

The bird feeders in the garden were all but empty, considering the abundance of food available. But once everything was covered in white again, I refilled and watched the dozens of winter visitors return.

It’s not that we’ve never had late snowfalls before in our region of eastern France. They’re rare, but we have them. What’s been strange this year is how very early the weather turned warm, and how far along spring had progressed before the snow fell. I don’t know what this cold snap will mean for flowers and insects that were developing weeks ahead of the usual season.

Then a day after heavy snowfall, spring was back with a vengeance. Branches that had been bowed by the wet snow were straightening, and buds burst forth again. Still waiting for the bees to return, though.

Oh, wait. This solitary bumblebee showed up!

solitary bumblebee
A bumblebee forages on forest floor Photo: PKR

Dried Acorns and Mirabelle Vodka

Of all the things dropping to the ground this summer, rain was particularly scarce.

The area of eastern France where we live is always hot in August. This year, though, after a rainy spring, June started heating up. And then July was hotter. As hot as August, but weeks early.

#wheat #wildcarrot #summer #sunshine #flowers #countryside #running #France

Wild carrot blooms along the verge of a wheat field just before harvest.
Photo: PKR

The minimal amounts of rain we got weren’t enough to keep the fields irrigated, so like other farmers around Europe in this hot season, our local farmers brought in the crop early to salvage what they could.

#harvest #summer #rain #countryside #running #France

The dry running path beneath gathering clouds.
Photo: PKR

The sunny mirabelle plums on our garden tree ripened weeks ahead of time, as did the wild blackberries all around the area. Tasty and delightful, but almost unseasonable in their timing.

#vodka #plums #mirabelles #garden

The last two mirabelle plums picked from the tree, and a bottle of some plums from earlier in the season. They’ll steep in vodka with a sprig of garden thyme and some sugar for a few months.
Photo: PKR

Acorns, too, carpet my running path – they should be hitting the ground in late summer. Hopefully the squirrels and other animals have noticed the weird clockwork of this year, and are taking a cue from the farmers by harvesting early.

Out on runs, I sometimes hear the boom of thunder somewhere in the mountains, and I watch for signs of relief. Often, the skies cloud over, and I’ll see rain falling somewhere nearby – but only for a few moments, and only over a limited area.

Of course, it’s not that there haven’t been heatwaves in the past. But even in the twenty-odd years since we moved here, the heatwaves have gotten more frequent, hotter, and longer.

This week, the heatwave finally broke and we’ve gotten a few evenings of rain and wind. It’s a welcome change to listen to rainfall rather than the constant thrum of fans, because of course an old place like ours doesn’t have central air conditioning.

The stone walls were usually enough to take a few weeks of August heat and still stay cool inside. We used to be able to lean against them, bare skin on stone as a quick refreshment. Not anymore – the stones of our house are heated through and radiate inward.

#harvest #summer #rain #countryside #running #France

A rain cloud brings a bit of relief.
Photo: PKR

Of course, we aren’t alone with our heatwave – it’s a phenomenon shared around the world this year. With any kind of luck, the slow climb of temperatures will come in fits and starts. With any kind of luck, we’ll have some time to take action, to adapt, to correct. With any kind of luck, a bit of luck will be on our side.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep using the luscious mirabelles for making plum vodka cordial, something to keep the winter nights warm once the heat has left the stones again.

#summer #acorns #oak

Acorns picked up during a run.
Photos: PKR

Making The Rounds

People ask me how I don’t get bored running the same loop after over twenty years. Out the door, up the road that leads out of the village towards the Jura mountains, past the little château and then up through the fields that skirt the French border to Switzerland.

The loop is a little over 4 km (2.5 mi), and I usually do it twice. Most of it is along a gravel road that divides the local golf course from agricultural land, with views of the Alps and Lake Geneva to the east, and the Jura to the west. The river Rhône is at the heart of a V between two ridges directly to the south. How could these views ever become boring? Summer, autumn, winter, spring, they change with every week – loud with birdsong in the spring and summer, crickets in the evening and cows noisily grazing in the morning. Silence and snow in the winter.

When it’s not hazy, I can see Mont Blanc as if it’s within a short sprint. When the clouds and fog descend, I might as well be living in the plains.

Hay bale, clouds, France, summer

Fallen harvest with the Jura beyond – this round bale clearly fell off the truck. The birds are picking it apart, day by day.
Photo: PKR

Earlier this year, I was out with a friend who grew up on an Austrian farm, and she pointed out another facet I hadn’t consciously noticed, even after two decades:

The local farmer (his farm is just past the château on the edge of the village) works all the surrounding fields here. He also has a herd of free-range dairy cows. What my friend noticed was just how carefully he rotates his crops, leaving many of the small fields fallow and grazed by the cows. The green spaces between the fields and the path are packed with blooming flowers, loud with the sound of busy insects.

France, field, wheat, summer

Recently shorn fields, soon to be plowed and either left fallow, or planted with a new crop.
Photo: PKR

The fields rotate through various crops – clover, wheat, corn, potatoes, barley, rapeseed. “This is old-school farming,” she marveled. “This means he’s using less fertilizer, he’s letting the cows do the work in each fallow field, he’s taking care of the soil.”

A field clock of harvest and cows: One more thing to watch as the seasons and years pass and I make my rounds.

cows, dairy, field, summer

I met these girls just after they’d been herded onto a fresh field. The farmer had just closed the fencing and was marching away with his dog. The cows were still deciding whether this field was acceptable or not.
Photo: PKR

Long Shadows, Long Light

We’ve had a break from all the clouds, torrential rain, intermittent hail and nights of snow – so I went for a run.

At this time of the year, the sun is low at 4:30 in the afternoon and sets only 20 minutes later. It casts long, reaching shadows from its last point of illumination above the ridge of the Jura range.

Barely nine hours of sunlight, the fingers of time drawing ever closer until they meet at the Northern Hemisphere winter solstice at 5:28 p.m. on Dec. 21.

The path behind.
Photo: PKR

It’s been a long year of upheaval, much of it political and environmental.

Some of it has been personal, though – breaking both wrists on a hike certainly put into perspective how much conscious effort the small things require when they are thrown into relief by not being able to do them on one’s own. Slicing bread, washing hair, turning a key in a lock, all the little things I take for granted on a daily basis. I am still relearning some basic movements, watching my limbs strain to regain their previous strength and flexibility after weeks of casts and months of recovery.

That sense of seeing the importance of the little things has taken place on a larger scale, as well. With forces around the world seeming to focus on many aspects of life we have taken for granted, sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees.

Photo: PKR

This final week before the solstice is always one of my favorite times of the year. The summer and autumnal marathon to ever-lengthening nights comes in to its final stretch, and I know the finish line is just up ahead. Soon, no matter how cold the winter, the days are going to get longer again. There will be more light to work by, and there is so much work to be done.

Meanwhile, this early evening path, just at the moment before the sun went down, reminds me that there is so much light in the space between the shadows.

The path ahead.
Photo: PKR

 

 

 

Last of the Season

The weather has turned so cold over the past week or so, mostly grey with the mountains getting their first coat of white. But today came up sunny, a nice change. I watched the blue sky while I worked, and finally managed to bundle up and go for a walk at sunset.

I found these hardy blossoms braving the low temperatures.

All photos: PKR

Some of the gardens still have flowers – especially late-blooming roses – but I was only interested in the roadside variety, the ones with no assistance, coming up along the edges, defying asphalt, gravel, cars, and dogs.

They’ve felt the bite of frost every morning for over a week, they’re starting to frizzle, but they’ve still got color and beauty to give before it all goes brown and white for the season.

 

Humble, bowed but not faded, a passing late pollinator might still find joy. And if the pollinators don’t find joy, well, at least this walker did.

Dusk Reflection

​​​It’s been a long week of heat.

A massive storm blew through, the crashing wave of a  weather front, flooding streets and downing branches in just a few minutes. It feels like the weather is echoing current events.

Now, at least, a bit of evening quietude as the thunder moves on down the road, leaving only rain in its wake.

A bit of water for the dry plum tree and the rest of the thirsty garden.

Summer Field Moment

I was out running yesterday and there was a cushion of sound, a papery hum, that accompanied me for a long stretch.

At first I thought it was the standard ambient noise of my run: a bit of mountain wind, shards of birdsong, maybe an underlying rush of water from the creek in the middle of the nearby forest (but only if it’s just rained). And then there’s the busy road at the lower end of our village, and the occasional plane above. It’s a familiar palette.

But this was closer, and I was pounding along and breathing heavily, so the soft crackle carpet of this sound took a while to push through to my awareness enough to make me stop and take a detour into the neighboring field.

I should have known all along. A field of rowdy insect song, full of hidden animals drunk on the heat of a summer morning.

So I thought I’d share it.

Another Harvest Moment

Summer harvest continues in our village. How do I know?

I can hear the tractors. But even with the windows shut, I know a field of grain is being cut.

​Look at that kettle of hawks, circling, waiting for the easy pickings of field mice in the newly shorn field.

Or maybe they’re just riding the thermals on a perfect summer day.

Harvest Moment

Out on a run, I could here the jangling racket of large farm machinery somewhere in the distance. It echoed across the low hills of my running loop. 

Finally, I found it. The crackling dry wheat was being cut. 

Here’s a slow summer moment in south-east France. 


The scent is an intoxicating mix of warm baked grass, honey, and a hint of something sharp and invigorating. 

And here’s what it looked like two days later.  The summer scent drew a small flock of ducks from a nearby pond. That, and probably the scattered grain. Lucky ducks.

Abundance of Sun

June 21 marks the longest day of this year in the northern hemisphere, and thus, it’s officially summer. Happy Summer Solstice!

At least here in south-eastern France, the dog days have already begun – hot and sunny and cloudless and dry.

We’re in the midst of the year’s first proper heat wave, with the temperatures at near-record highs. There’s the sense that every year now, or at least most of them, will be record-breaking when it comes to heat.

We hooked up cisterns to catch spring’s ample rainfall – with any luck, that water will see the kitchen garden through what promises to be a very long season of sun spread over ever-shortening days.