The equinox has come and gone, hardly a surprise but it signifies the end of the season for France. Soon the hunters will be out in force, the mushroom gatherers are already an army, the deer are in rut and I need to light a fire every day. The swallows slipped away in the last couple of days and I hardly noticed tied up in the twisted convolutions of my own brain.
The melon is harvested and will be consumed for breakfast tomorrow when the master of the house arrives. It smells delightful and I wish there were more of them.
The viciously spiky Morelle de Balbis or Solanum sisymbriifolium which is almost impossible to pick fruit from has revealed a useful trait. When the fruit is fully ripe and the horribly prickly husk has retracted then the berries fall to the ground. Put a clean piece of plastic or, in my case, corrugated iron beneath the plant for easy retrieval and vila-vila is your salad.
The cats, well, one of them brought in this poor squirrel. I'm not sure how they caught it or killed it, it was unmarked and apparently without any illness. A great mystery and a worse pity.
The pumpkins were harvested and are now curing in a quiet back bedroom. A few Sweet Dumplings and Muscade if it matures in time to come.
And there are still butterflies, I saw five Peacock, a Small Tortoiseshell and a Copper on the sedums today, with several varieties of Whites about the place. There's still hope.
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