A curious end to the summer, marked by small, unripe fruits and a noticeable absence of wasps and hornets. Bees in the pool, yes, but few hornets in the vines and fewer wasps. Now that the warm weather seems to have settled in without interruption of rain or...
One of the many basic rules of country life is that humans have to share place with other, non-human forms of life. So, for example, I share my house with various insects, spiders, a variety of flies, the odd millipede, or hornets with a poor sense of direction. In...
Autumn arrived mid-August at La Chaise. The weather gods gave up trying to be nice and concentrated on being unreliable. Fruitfulness was rampant rather than mellow. Heavy rain storms beat plums, apples and unripe walnuts from the trees. Intermittent bursts of... 
