Fall is coming to LaBu. The first sign—really—was the cherry tree leaves, which almost overnight began to turn a light shade of yellow, before gravity and a light still-warm wind scattered them across the grass below. Now, we have a few particularly precocious chestnuts that have fallen onto our lane that heads into the village (and well, to everywhere else as well). These are still quite green and small, but just as prickly as those who will manage to wait until it’s a little cooler. The farmers are waiting just another day, or another day to harvest the corn, trying to get every last bit of growth into the ears. Now that one of the nearby farmers has taken down his field, it’s only a matter of a few days before everyone else will as well. Square pegs in round holes, and the like.
Yesterday was brilliantly warm, today at nearly noon, fog still hangs on everything.
Much has happened over the last couple of months. Mostly notably, of course, is the kitchen. Walls are up, plumbing is in, undercoat on the walls (and one ceiling), and the 60m2 of Italian stone that makes up the floor is getting its final grouting today. The kitchen extension—although it might more accurately be called the relocation since both range and frigo will be there—has a foundation, block walls, and a bit of wood framing done. The vast majority of the remaining work involves ancient oak slabs that weigh just shy of the universe. We’ll work on these until our backs give out.
The cats are now both officially French. Nothing has changed, except—if such a thing is even possible—they have both adopted a more supercilious attitude. Charlemagne has mastered the quintessential French shrug (accomplished with a smirk that barely makes itself known around the vole he always seems to be carrying around these days); Artemis is trying to figure out how to keep her delightful little pink beret attached when she throws herself uncaringly into the shrubbery which bounds the front garden. Those days that are sunny sees lots of languidness, and when the light is just right, the unmistakable sounds and sights of Arty munching her way through the late-season grasshoppers fill our days.
COVID en France is complicated. We have a health passport that is necessary for almost anything you’d want to do inside, and for not an insignificant number of things outside. There are the evitable protests in the cities. Out here in the country, most everyone just accepts it, whether vaxed or not. We’re squarely in the ‘living with it,’ camp now; like elsewhere, the vast majority of people who are getting seriously sick and dying are those that have refused the vaccine. It will pass, one way or another.
Some pictures follow, and will take the place of another thousand words or so. More later.
any morning, any day 
K repointed our walls, and left little niches where the beam used to be. We’re using them. 
hard at work 
the beginnings of the kitchen extension 
A rare moment of countryside 
Kitchen
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