back in thistle territory

one of my loves has a warm but prickly heart. somewhere near the center of any given patch of the local scrubland called garrigue, there are always thistles. they seem to take a malicious delight in grabbing your calves with their talons. but they are part of the rough hewn beauty of this place. I wouldn’t love it as much, if it went all soft and mushy on my.

thistle leaves

wild gifts

our neighbors stopped by with a cap full of little brown mushrooms. they had been visiting their vineyards, and came across a little community of old friends. the mushrooms are called mousserons. and we were instructed to make omelets from them. but first, there was some important work to do, which my husband happens to have the patience for. hey stevie, can you arrange these into a grid, and make sure there are no little specks of grit showing on the white background? he said sure. as he always does.

mousseron: champignons sauvages

non-native but i don’t care

the climate, and as a result the flora, of southern france is very similar to that of california.  which means, like california, eucalyptus is right at home and looks as if it has always been there. eucalyptus however is non-native to both locations. it is native only to australia. and because it is drought hardy it tends to fare quite well in both places. so well, in fact, that it has been labeled an unwanted invasive by those who care about such things. i am usually one of those people, but i have to say, driving along a california highway, or walking along a rocky mediterranean path through eucalyptus perfume makes me willing to forget where they came from, and feel, only slightly guiltily, happy about where they ended up.

eucalyptus

what the what?

the first time we walked under a magnolia tree in full fruiting glory i was horrified. what in the world was going on? it looked like a tumor, or a mummified heart with live worms crawling out of it. the seed pods were enormous–the size of  an adult hand, with lipstick-red seeds squirting out from them. the leaves of the trees were unmistakable, but it looked as if the angelic white blossoms of spring had been possessed by some malevolent tree devil.

magnolia tree seed pod

our young naturalist

our son, joseph, has been coming to southern france since he was 6 (he is 15 now). for most of his boyhood, he was an enthusiastic and avid naturalist. we listened to interviews of e.o. wilson in the car, read darwin’s adventures on the beagle, and generally encouraged his obsessive passion. this collection of bugs and beetles from southern france are mostly ‘finds’ of joe’s. the praying mantis became a pet, and lived out a contented life in a large terrarium. it eventually laid eggs in that terrarium the last time we were there. we gifted the mantis and her eggs to our neighbor jean-luc when we left. he informed us that mantids lay thousands of eggs at a time, and that he would make sure to take good care of them, by allowing them to hatch inside the car we store in the garage of our rented home. that way they would be there to greet us when we returned.

bugs and beetles of occitanie: