wild oats are native to eurasia and therefore native to here, as are so many of the plants we see growing like weeds around us. there is wild fennel along every roadside. fig trees pop up along every untended field and fencerow. i just passed two wild quince trees on my drive to the butcher. there is a neglected pomegranate tree on the way to joe’s school. and if you look across the landscape you will see the jagged silhouettes of almond trees. is it any wonder that a great cuisine sprang up out of a place that reminds you of food everywhere you look?

common wild oats (avena fatua )

autignac, languedoc, france

the house we rent here is called “maison olivier,” or “the olive tree house.” there is a shapely olive tree in the courtyard behind the house, and it reminds us that we are in the one region of the world–the mediterranean basin–whose boundaries are defined almost exclusively by where olives grow. if they grow near you, you are in the mediterranean region. if they don’t, you are somewhere else. all i know is that there is nothing like the silver sage foliage of an olive grove to make you aware that you are not in minnesota anymore.

olive branch

autignac, languedoc, france

these hagstones are doing an excellent job of warding off evil. eva arrived safe and sound in california. joseph has integrated into his middle school here. steve is harvesting grapes again, to his great joy. i am taking photographs and listening to podcasts, and doodling in my journal. keep doing your work, my dearies. and thank you.

beach rocks

from the lido between sète and marseillan plage, languedoc

the grape harvest has started here, with tractors hauling big dumpsters full of grape clusters through the village streets, and along the shoulders of regional highways. what almost everyone else wants from the vineyards are these grapes. but what i’ve been waiting for are my deliveries of birds nests. the grape pickers come across nests that have been constructed in the branches of vines. they check with jean-luc to make sure they aren’t the nests of birds that might come back next year to reuse the same nest, and then they remove them and give them to me. today i received four, including this incredible beauty left behind by a mama bird that most likely got preyed on, or she would never have left five eggs behind. no one in the group of pickers today could remember seeing five eggs in a single nest. when i first saw it, i brought my hands to my face, and felt choked up about how beautiful it was.

chardonneret élégant bird nest with eggs

taken from jean-luc’s hectare of syrah vines in autignac, france