McCormick decked with flowers – McCormick fleurie

The McCormick harvester and twine binder, maufactured in 1881, was the first binder which tied the bundles with twine. Jean Michel remembers seeing them in the sixties on his grandparents’ farm. This one, in Onzain, just across the Loire from Château de Chaumont is decorated with fllowers every summer. La faucheuse-lieuse McCormick, fabriquée dès 1881, était la …

A Barrow of Spuds – Une brouette de patates

Today, we brought in our potato crop. Potatoes are very easy to grow and require absolutely no maintenance, unlike our tomatoes which suffered from lack of watering and got blight. Aujourd”hui nous avons récolté nos pommes de terre. Il est très facile de faire pousser les pommes de terres qui ne demandent aucun entretien à …

Evening Primrose – Onagre

We arrived in the garden of our little house one morning to discover this beautiful yellow flower that we didn’t remember from the year before and certainly hadn’t planted ourselves. It turns out to be Oenothera biennis or Evening Primrose, also called Sun Drop – and it is a biennial which means it only blooms …

Snails at dinner – Escargots à la fin du dîner

We were just finishing dinner al fresco when I spied these enormous snails (the shell was about three fingers wide) among the weeds after the rain. Nous étions à la fin de notre repas dans le jardin lorsque j’ai vu ces énormes escargots (la coquille mesurait environ trois doigts) parmi les mauvaises herbes après la pluie.

Hollyhocks after the storm – Roses trémières après l'orage

We had a very violent storm last night. Because of their great height, hollyhocks are often the first to suffer. This is what happened next door. The photo below shows our hollyhocks which I had fortunately taken the time to attach during the afternoon. Only a couple had fallen slightly to one side. Hier soir on …