Views of the Pyrenees

As I was leaving the house this morning, I noticed that the Pyrenees were in full view and went back to pick up my camera. By the time I was to a point where I could get a good view, the haze was starting to set in over the mountains. The above photo is of the church in the small village of Saman which is about 15km from where we live. The commune has a population of around 200 people.

This is the view to the southeast from the point where I took the photo of the village. There is some snow in the Pyrenees, but in another two months, we hope the mountains will be covered with snow. The trees in the foreground are plantan, or plane trees. These are the same trees that line many of the roads in France. Many times you will have them on both sides of the road, and you feel as if you are driving into a tunnel when the branches meet above you.

This is a photo just to the right of the above photo. Normally you would be able to see the mountains peaks behind these mountains that are across the border in Spain.

More Fete en Fleurs

This is the float that was put together by the over 60 club in our town. As you can see everyone has to be creative in trying to make a tractor not look like a tractor.

This float was put together by the association for donating blood. They have blood drives here every two months and the nursing staff comes from Toulouse.

This is the float for the rugby club. This area of France is where most of the rugby players are from that play on the French Rugby Team. They start teaching the children rugby when they are six years old. The classes are open to both boys and girls.

The sapeurs (first medical responders) and pompiers (firemen and women) put together this float. The people that are involved with this organization are all volunteers. I can not say enough about all of the work these people do. Many times they are involved in very dangerous operations, especially when it comes to the fires. The number 18 that is on the side of the float is the 911 number here in France.

Fete en Fleurs

The annual Fete en Fleurs was held in L'Isle-en-Dodon on the weekend of 13-14 September of this year. The above photo is of the members of the Patanage (Roller skating) Association in our town. We assembled the carcass for the float starting on 6 Sept, and continuing through the week until it was ready to have the flowers glued on on 12 September.

The white boxes contain the flowers which are grown here in France in Loire Valley. They are shipped on the Friday before the fete to our town and then delivered to the various sites where they will be glued on the floats. This year there were ten floats in the parade and two bands. There is a carnival that sets up in the town for the weekend. On Friday night there is a dance that is the beginning of the fete. Saturday evening the rugby club has a barbecue for the fete. Following the meal there is a show presented on a stage by the mairie (town hall). This years show was a spectacular with orchestra, singers and dancers. After the first three numbers, it started raining and they had to stop the performance, so everyone was disappointed.

The above photo is the completed float. This year the float was the first in the parade, and the winners of the competition for Miss Fete en Fleurs were on the float.

This is the float as we were beginning the parade with the young ladies who won the competition on the float.

On Sunday evening after the parade there was another concert. The show lasted until two o'clock in the morning. On Monday there was a jazz combo that played at lunch time in one of the plaza here in the town. Monday evening there was a fireworks display with music at the lake, and after that a dance that again lasted until the early hours of the morning.

Another Day in the Country

Today we took our Gite guest to ride in canoes down one of the local small rivers about four miles from our place.

These photos were taken along the side of the Gesse river as we were waiting for the canoes to pass. Trouble was, the river was flowing faster than expected and when we arrived, the canoes had already passed.
Wheat is one of the crops grown in the area, the harvest has been going on for the last three weeks and after they cut the wheat the straw is put into these bales. They are about six feet high when they are placed on the flat side, so many of the farmers will put them up as wind breaks in the winter, or even use them as a temporary fence.














After we arrived at the landing area for the canoes we had a picnic with our guests along the side of the river. These sunflowers were growing next to where we had the picnic. Most of the seeds are used as sunflower oil, as the French are not big into eating sunflower seeds as a general rule.
I was trying to get a photo of a bee that was on this sunflower, but by the time I got the shot ready he was gone.

Another weekend trip.

The first weekend in May we decided to go to Montsegur. Montsegur is one of the chateaus that the Cathar religion had retreated to in the 1200's when the Catholic church, and the King of France was trying to unify the southern part of the country with the north. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monts%C3%A9gur


As you can see by the photos although there is somewhat of a stairway to the top, at times you were almost in a crawl position to get to the top.

Clark about half way up.

Where is everyone?

The view from the top. One of the amazing things about the place was trying to figure out how they were able to get the wood beams that were used in the construction up this mountain. Would loved to have been there on a clear day, as the views were spectacular.

End of the Tulips

This seems to be the final week for the tulips in the Garden. I missed taking photos of some of the better displays of color, but maybe I will get some better shots next year. The tulips in this photo are in their third year. This year I forgot they were here and added about three inches of topsoil on top of them. Although they came up later than in past years they have been in bloom for two weeks.










The iris in this photo were some of the iris that I brought from San Francisco when we moved here six years ago. The origional plants were given to me by a friend in the early eighties. I planted them in the garden in San Francisco, and they soon took over most of the garden. I dug them all up in the early ninties and as I was carrying them to the trash can. Our neighbor Karen asked me if it was OK if she took some of them to plant in her garden. I warned her about how prolific they were and she said no problem. As they proceeded to take over her garden, she started giving them away. When we moved, they were a going away present for me.


This is one of the tulips that I planted about six years ago. I am always amazed about the stamina of this tulip.

Last Saturdays Trip

We went for a drive last Saturday over to the east side of the Haute Garonne. As we were driving we saw this ruin on a hill and decided to explore. Ruins like these dot the countryside of south west France, and many of them date to the 12th to the 14the Century. In most cases it is difficult to find out much about them but it is one of the things that we like to explore.

This is the Chateau as you approach from the road that goes past it. As you can see there is not much left that you would be able to restore. Many of these ruins are old fortified chateaus that are still owned by heirs of the original owners.

This is a view of the Chateau from the gate that you see in the above photo. One thing that was interesting was the flowers that were still growing that had probably been planted several hundred years ago.

This is a view from the other side of the Chateau. The village below is Montbrun Bocage. There are many buildings in the village that date back to the 1500's