one of my rules is that i don’t photograph domesticated, culinary, or agricultural subjects for still blog, because there is too much access to them, and part of the point of still blog is finding creativity within the constraints i’ve placed on myself. one of my other rules, is that i don’t always follow my own rules.

autignac, france

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we found this dried seed pod of the flower “love in the mist” on a hillside just across from a local spring, which, like perrier, produces an endless, and endlessly profitable, stream of sparkling water, called vernière. the local waters in this area supposedly have healing powers, although those powers do not appear to have crossed the road to the hillside where this flower aged into a dry and  brittle senescence.

nigella damascena (love-in-a-mist)

vernières, languedoc, france

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one of the unexpected thrills, for an american, of living within an hour’s drive of the mediterranan, is the occasional glimpse it provides into a world that was flourishing a couple of thousand years before the declaration of independence. the chestnuts ripening on the trees along our leisurely afternoon drive today would have been completely familiar to a roman soldier, marching wherever caesar had sent him this time. his dinner that night would very possibly have been a porridge of ground and boiled chestnuts. i only hope he enjoyed it. and i hope he finished his meal the way we just did. with a cup or two of wine.

châtaignes (edible sweet chestnuts) castanea sativa

valley of the river orb, colombes, languedoc, france

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twelve year old joseph is starting to fall in love with fishing, which is an event his father has been waiting for, sometimes patiently, sometimes not, for a number of years. one of joe’s stated goals for this trip for france was to go fishing on one of our favorite rivers, the endlessly beautiful orb, which winds between wooded banks from the hills behind us, down onto the coastal plain, before emptying into the hérault river and eventually into the mediterranean. there are trout in most of its upper reaches, and steve and joe climbed into the river together one morning last week, true fishing buddies for the first time. it was an auspicious moment, and we all would have considered it even more so, if we had recognized that the deeply veined leaves of the small trees lining the bank of the river next to us were alder leaves–the same tree that lines the banks of most of steve’s favorite trout streams in michigan and minnesota. no fish were caught that day, but two days later the boys went out alone together, and, on the verge of giving up, they caught a small brown trout from behind a rock in the middle of the stream, and had, at last, successfully fished on the orb. i’m afraid i’ll be seeing less of both of them over the next few years.

alder leaves (feuilles d’aulne)

orb river, le bousquet d’orb, languedoc, france

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i don’t know what this grass is called, despite a very nerdy effort this evening via google and a guidebook called “la garrigue, grandeur nature” (thank you sonia!). the little woolly seed heads of this plant are bobbing everywhere right now along the streets of our village and along the rural roads of the languedoc. all i can think of is the fact that i am 52, and despite spending most of my life feeling pretty sharp, i sometimes feel as empty headed as this seed fluff: what was that place called? where did we go that year? who was that guy, you know, that guy . . . with the hat? and the . . . you know . . . at that place?

abundant roadside grasses

autignac, languedoc, france

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