Rain overnight, but by early morning there is a deep fog and the luxuriate sound of drops of water falling onto last Fall’s leaves and early Spring’s grasses. The field I know is across the lane is still some few hours from being entirely recognizable, the nearest mounds of grass and cow dung ready to be spread when planting begins waver in and out of the mist like something one might see in an animated Tang dynasty scroll.
It sounds like the neighbors might has acquired a goose, although later I learn it was just passing through. Geese were the great guardsmen of the Romans, alert to anything that disturbs their sense of comportment, which is saying something, since the great male that watches over his bevies of beauties at the end of the lane runs at me hissing every time I go by. Proof, I guess, that I’m not yet one of the flock.
The pile of cut trees that were awaiting my arrival, and that are quickly acquiring a patina of moss, need some attention. I may break down, since so many of the log rounds are twice my own circumference, and buy a pneumatic splitter. I’ve worked on those pieces of those trees that make sense, those that come apart as a 24kg wedge of newly-filed steel hits them, driven by shoulders and hips that fell easily into action, even after a month of rest. Plans to recreate the wood store that once held on to the southwest side of the house but that was knocked down a number of years ago to supply stone and wood for something else, have given way to the much easier—and I’m assured by Madam, much more aesthetically-sensitive—solution of using a room of the summer house. Dave, a friend visiting for the summer, and as a practical a solver of puzzles as there is, notes that even if it isn’t the best way to do it, the wood will be gone in a couple of winters, and we can look at our needs anew.
Cindy, who is here with Dave for the summer, has already begun the tedious work of dealing with the resurgent blackberries that have taken advantage of a few days of sun to recommence their conquest of the garden. They aren’t strictly speaking vines, but they are as intransigent and aggressive as the ivy we’ve been busy cutting off of trees and one of the outbuildings. We’re waiting to see if any will try again with the house after a determined pruning in December.
A new couch, a couple of new lamps, and a new collection of beds are helping to turn the large rooms, each capped with enormous chestnut beams, into a home. A swath of wiring that I thought I’d fused into an amalgam of copper and plastic and plaster in an overly enthusiastic effort to do away with all the superfluous cabling left behind by the previous owners, was brought back to life by Dave just as we were contemplating cutting into the walls behind the bookcases.
The vaunted French bureaucracy has come through with all the appropriate permitting to undertake what is almost a traditional exercise amongst new owners: replacing the septic system. The rules for what constitutes a fosse septique in conformity with ever changing standards, means that we’ll be fine at least until we die. After which, I imagine I won’t much care.
When we return next month, Madame has declared a week-long holiday that will celebrate viscerally with the uprooting of out-of-place shrubs, flowers, small trees, and rock beds and the eventual resettling of those that survive in places more conducive to The Vision.
Spring has come to LaBu.
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