each one of these thistle flowers is the size of my palm. the plant itself was 1.5 meters high. enormous.  i had seen them on the side of the road on the way into our village. so while my hubby was running errands one day i asked him to stop and get me the flowers.  i had in mind a cute basket full of the snipped off flower heads. instead i got  two entire plants about the size of a fiat 500.

extra large thistle flowers

autignac, france

i stopped the car to snip this thistle stem because i had in mind that i wanted to make an assemblage of all the dried things i am seeing. only then did i see the one blooming flower in this otherwise dried out stem. i decided to reward its tenacity with a brief moment of fame.

yet another mediterranean thistle/chardon 

autignac, france

according to jean-luc, the almonds in this little corner of southern france are ready to eat any time after june 24th of each year, plus ou moins. the young fruits are tender and tasty, and will continue to ripen for the next several months until their shells are hard and brown and split open. on the other hand, one must be aware that there are sweet almonds and bitter almonds. the bitter almonds smell wonderful, like marizipan, but are inedible. the sweet almonds . . . well . . . we just finished off a small handful.

young almond fruits

autignac, france

color blocks on a neutral background. miro or calder? it’s late, the bats are circling, the second bottle of wine is open. dammit, i’m calling it a hoffman.

wild (?) poppy

beside the D154, autignac, france