Fitzroy's works of natural art

In my blog post of 11 March 2011 entitled Fitzroy art collector [display], I drew attention to the fact that my dog appears to be a cultivated collector of interesting naturally-occurring wood objects. He's still engaged in this preoccupation, more than ever. Since Fitzroy has now evolved into a powerful animal, accustomed to twilight excursions into remote corners of Gamone Creek, the exceptional objects that he discovers and brings back to the house are becoming more and more sizable and significant.

I refer to them naively, in my inexpert language, as "works of natural art" because these objects appear to have been shaped and textured solely by Nature, with no creative interventions by man or beast. But Fitzroy might not be happy with this terminology, because I have reasons to believe that my dog considers that supernatural cosmic forces of a spiritual kind may have played a role in fashioning the objects that concern him. I would like to glean expert explanations on this vast subject from Fitzroy himself, but he's generally totally enthralled by the delicate handling and contemplation of his precious objects, and prefers not to talk too much about them. He tends to be somewhat elitist, and surely thinks of me as a Philistine. Let's call a spade a spade: Fitzroy's a nice guy, but he's a kind of art snob.

BREAKING NEWS (Thursday midday): My dog seems to be following me (as they say in Internet jargon). No sooner had I started to write this addendum than Fitzroy raced up the stairs, sat down on the floor alongside my desk, and reached up with his left paw and scratched my arm. What I wanted to say was that I had the impression, when I walked outside this morning, that Fitzroy had read the above blog post, and wished to confirm that my opinions were spot on. During the early hours of the morning, he went out on a search expedition and brought back an even bigger stick than the one in the above photo, and laid it down alongside the first one. Then the post woman Martine pulled up, in her little yellow van, and said to me spontaneously (as Fitzroy jumped up on the door of the vehicle to greet her): "I often notice half-burnt sticks in the middle of the road, left there by your little black dog." I really must start looking around for an academy of fine arts (maybe in nearby Provence) that would be prepared to accept my artistically-gifted dog as a student.

Pergola roses

Nearly all the so-called "old roses" on my pergola are in full bloom today and, for some of them, this is the first time they've ever been in such a resplendent state.

Same tree, different seasons

Back in January, when the two horses were residing at Gamone, this was a view of the linden tree with the lower paddock in the background:

And here's the same scene this afternoon:

For those who have the good fortune to live in a rural environment, the seasons are present constantly in our existence, in a visceral fashion. An individual's body and mind is metamorphosed, no doubt, in a comparable manner, without our being totally aware of the current situation at any particular moment.

Tree sawed into firewood

In my recent article about cutting down a dead tree at Gamone [display], I should have pointed out that the tree in question is known in French as a Frêne [Fraxinus excelsior]. In English, it's a European Ash. The latter term has nothing to do with the stuff that remains after a fire. It comes from a Saxon word, æsc, which means spear. Ash wood is indeed hard and dense, and I can well imagine it being used for spears.

Now, this is funny, because my surname, Skyvington, is derived from the Saxon expression Sceaftinga tûn, which can be translated as "the place of Sceaft’s people". Used as a noun, sceaft means a shaft or spear, suggesting that the original settlement (in what we now call Leicestershire) was the home of a Saxon warrior who was a reputed spear-thrower. So, the Saxon words sceaft and æsc are surely related.

This afternoon, I finished the job of cutting up the branches with a chainsaw. And it has provided me with a stock of fine dry firewood.

For the thicker parts of the trunk, I used steel wedges and a sledgehammer to split the wood.

Next winter, when I'm warming my toes in front of a log fire, I'll inevitably think back to the ancient Saxon warrior who was at the origin of my family name. He did this in a rather indirect manner, and grudgingly, because his settlement was simply taken over (maybe after a combat) by the companions of William the Conqueror. One of these Norman invaders was my real ancestor, not the celebrated Saxon spear-thrower. Be that as it may, I'm grateful to the Saxon fellow named Sceaft for participating unwittingly, unwillingly, in my personal genealogy by supplying me with my surname… just as I'll be grateful to the dead ash tree for supplying me with warmth.

Cherry season

The cherry tree alongside the house is loaded with fruit, but it's located on a steep embankment, which makes cherry-picking difficult.

During this activity, the dogs are alongside me constantly, either at the foot of the ladder, or scrounging in the vicinity of a bowl of fruit, waiting for an inevitable handout. Cherries go down their throats whole, of course, including the stones. Sophia would never steal a cherry from a bowl but, as soon as I place a single cherry alongside the bowl, she understands immediately that it's for her.

While they followed me around, I was able to take a few good portraits.

A few days ago, I was slightly alarmed to discover that Fitzroy had mistakenly identified the clay marbles in a flower pot (supposedly useful for keeping the soil loose) as cherries.

That's to say, I found him crunching away at one of these little red balls. I could clearly hear the sound of the clay being ground to powder by Fitzroy's powerful molars. After swallowing it, he looked up at me with a satisfied expression and wiped his lips with his tongue.

State of Gamone garden

Don't imagine for a moment that the present state of my rose pergola and garden at Gamone might be the outcome of my horticultural skills. The causes lie closer to sheer chance than to what I had vaguely in mind when I selected and planted my first rose bushes in the second half of 2009. In any case, the final result, as seen today, pleases me greatly. Here's a view of the pergola from down in the garden:

Here's a top view of the pergola from in front of the house:

It's a subdued and subtle vision of roses. Low-key, you might say, quite the opposite of flashy. The dominant hue is pink, with a touch of bright red.

Elsewhere in the garden, there are several white roses.

The Manou Meilland is one of the more conspicuous roses.

In a far corner, the New Year provides a mixture of several bright hues.

And Paul Bocuse has just appeared timidly on the scene.

From a color viewpoint, peonies steal the show, but they bloom separately, at different times. Let's not blame this spectacular specimen for having a silly name:

I took most of these photos yesterday. Then a violent storm hit Gamone, dropping a huge quantity of much-appreciated water on the slopes. Inevitably, some of the blossoms you see here got damaged by the storm, particularly the peonies. But, as a whole, the garden survived quite well.

Dead tree at Gamone

Normally, dead trees at Gamone don't worry me at all. On the contrary, I see them as attractive havens for wild life, from birds through to insects that thrive on dead wood. The problem with this old fellow—a hundred meters down from my house—was that he might be blown down onto the road, when we were least expecting it, by one of our frequent windstorms.

So, I decided to cut him down. That trivial operation extended over a brief 30 minutes. I climbed up the ladder, positioned my backside firmly against the slopes, and slowly sliced through the dead trunk with my Husqvarna chainsaw. The tree fell across the road, as planned. A few minutes later, my neighbor René Uzel happened to be driving down towards that spot, so he had to halt his four-wheel drive vehicle while I started hacking off the trunk that blocked the road. René noticed that my chainsaw was so blunt that it would have difficulties in slicing through butter. He tapped me on the shoulder, and suggested that I stop sawing. He would simply tow the fallen tree up alongside my house. This he did, in about five minutes. That totally-practical guy, who grew up here at Gamone, has been helping me in similar ways ever since my arrival here in 1993. So, I now have an appreciable stock of firewood just alongside the house.

I had to nudge it around a bit, by means of a chain attached to my Citroën, to remove the risk of a neighbor running into the branches.

Down alongside the road, only the stump now remained.

During these operations, as you can see from the photos, Fitzroy was highly concerned by everything that was taking place. Meanwhile, Sophia simply lounged around in her usual style, waiting for things to calm down. She's Zen, a little like me, and couldn't understand why there was all this noise and agitation at Gamone, because of a dead tree.

Thanks to the chance presence of René, the firewood now awaits my intervention, as soon as my chainsaw is sharpened. I left it with a specialist in St-Marcellin, and I'll have it back next Tuesday.

Grapevines and walnut trees

In my article of 20 November 2010 entitled Wine of a kind [display], I evoked the Herbemont variety of US grapevines, which was one of the six varieties imported into France towards the end of the 19th century, for grafting in the hope of halting the catastrophic Phylloxera invasion. Here at Choranche, cunning landowners got around to using this Vitis americana plant, not for grafting, but to make a would-be "wine", as if it were a genuine variety of Vitis vinifera, which it was not. Today, the production of beverages from these six American "grape weeds" (Herbemont, Noah, Clinton, Jacquez, Isabelle and Othello), thought to be unfit for human consumption, is prohibited by law, and has almost ceased to exist. On the other hand, French authorities concerned with varieties of grapevines informed me last year that they know next to nothing about the exotic Herbemont plant, and they would like to inspect the specimens growing (apparently) at Gamone. I promised them that I would make an effort to prevent my donkeys from devouring the precious vines. So, I fenced of the area where Hippolyte Gerin, half a century ago, planted his famous Herbemont. Here's a first resurgence of the delicate reddish Herbemont leaves:

There are a dozen or so visible plants, and I've started to clean up the ground around some of them:

Meanwhile, the walnut trees of Gamone have donned themselves in colorful leaves, as if to welcome the warmness.

Sometimes, I think of my humble walnuts, not as trees, but as clockwork machines. They obey the seasons precisely, minutely, as if they were programmed… which, of course, they are, like everything else in the Cosmos.

Their hues are tender and fleeting, like the warm phantom of Spring that has deigned to move over Gamone. They are old, too, my Gamone walnut trees… like me. I love and respect them.

Greenness and shadows

Although I continue to spend a huge part of my time in front of the computer screen—where I've been examining the interesting rapidly-evolving question of the inclusion of videos in HTML5 websites (which I will deal with shortly, briefly, in this blog)—I take advantage of the splendid weather to fiddle around out in the garden, where I'm planting a further assortment of perennials. The following photo shows my garden and rose pergola viewed from the northern end (as opposed to the view from the southern end, shown in my earlier article on the garden at Gamone).

The single word that best characterizes Gamone at this time of the year is greenness.

This abundant all-invading greenness came upon us quite suddenly, when we were almost not expecting it. The warmth, too, is surprising at this time of mid-spring. Figuring out that the forthcoming summer will no doubt be hot and dry, I decided to do a bit of preventive burning-off, a week or so ago, on rock-strewn slopes close to the house, between the roadway and the creek.

The dogs are happy to be able to romp around in the long grass.

Sophia is completing her second intensive session of antibiotics and cortisone, and I have the impression that she has been reacting positively. If it's a fact that she has some kind of a tumor in the upper region of the left-hand side of her snout, causing her to breathe audibly from time to time, then it's certainly not visible from the outside.

These days, I'm more concerned by news about Sophia's daughter Gamone, in Brittany. Christine tells me that her marvelous little dog appears to be prone to epileptic fits. Consequently, like her mother Sophia, she's now under constant medication.

As for Fitzroy, who has now been an inhabitant of the planet Earth for three-quarters of a year, the sun's rays have been initiating him into an awareness of a mysterious phenomenon of a new kind (for him): sharp shadows. An hour ago, I saw him dashing around furiously on a patch of bare earth alongside the house, trying vainly to capture the shadow of a butterfly that was hovering a meter above his head. Then we were all treated to a most disturbing big shadow, which flashed across the grassy slopes of Gamone, accompanied by a terrifying noise (enough to drive a dog crazy). It was the rapidly moving shadow of a Mirage 2000, maybe heading back up to the base at Dijon after a stint down in Gaddafi's combat zone. Fitzroy stood on the edge of our terrace, gazing in bewilderment at the point on the north-eastern horizon where the noisy aircraft had disappeared. I would have liked to be able to tell my dear little dog what it was all about, and maybe reassure him. But, before tackling the shadows of jet fighters, it would surely be better to start with butterflies.

Gamone garden, a year later

This photo was taken a year ago, on 23 April 2010:

And here's a photo taken this morning, on 20 April 2011:

There's not much color yet, since it's too early for the roses. As you can see, I finally decided not to prune the thick upper rose foliage on the pergola… to see what happens.

I'm happy to discover that all my nine peony plants appear to be thriving. My doctor, who's reputed to be an expert gardener, had worried me when he told me he'd never succeeded in growing peonies at Pont-en-Royans. As at the same time last year, the earliest peonies to bloom are two splendid Japanese Suffruticosa specimens.

An interesting operation, this year, consists of judging the various perennials that I planted last year, often without knowing how they might react here at Gamone. I've discovered that two delightful little perennials are the simple ivory and shiny green Iberis and several colorful varieties of Phlox.


On the other hand, I realize that I planted certain perennials, such as Arabis [in French: Arabette], that are not particularly esthetic.

Some of my Arabis plants appear to be flattened out, and look like big bird nests. I suspect that Fitzroy could well have discovered that a soft sweet-smelling perennial is a fine place for an afternoon snooze.

I hasten to point out that I do not consider myself to be a genuine serious gardener, since it's not something that formed a part of my cultural upbringing in Australia. I'm what might be termed a dilettante gardener. On the other hand, it's a simple preoccupation that gives me immense pleasure here at Gamone... a little like strolling with the dogs, or admiring the mountains.

Pots and pans

It would be dishonest of me not to admit that, towards the end of winter at Gamone, a certain number of innocent pots and pans tend to pass the final weeks in a state of grubby purgatory, like neglected orphans, awaiting the return of sunny conditions, when the master of the household might at last deign to clean them up and store them away.

For reasons that might have something to do with my childhood out in Australia, I'm particularly fond of being able to leave stuff out in the sun to dry : freshly-washed clothes, above all, and pots and pans. I also get a kick out of sun-drying edible products such as bay leaves and green walnuts (after they've been soaked in brine, with pickling in view).

On the other hand, I've always known that it's not a good idea to envisage leaving myself out in the strong sun for hours on end. I neither bake golden brown nor even dry out. I simply get sunburned. My dear mother would have been enchanted if her son could have been transformed by the rays of the sun into the lovely look of a bronzed Aussie surfer. On one sad occasion, when I was a child, my mother's encouragements at this level led to my ending up in hospital with third-degree burns. She herself belonged to a Down Under generation who apparently admired people with dark brown leathery skins, inevitably crisscrossed by ridges and wrinkles. Maybe my own lifelong fascination for fair girls with a light-olive facial complexion and soft milky skin might be a reaction against my mother's esthetic tastes. In any case, I'm convinced that my personal dermato-genetic inheritance is strictly Scandinavian, probably brought down to Normandy by a fierce red-faced Viking warrior adorned in a broad-rimmed hat, with yucky reindeer fat smeared across his tender nose.

Oh what a beautiful morning!

The air is warm. From her sunny doorstep, Sophia contemplates the beauty of the Cosmos.

She's probably saying to herself: "Why does the Master never stop taking photos?" That's a good question. One would have thought that we've had time enough to record all the images that need to be recorded. Besides, why do people carry on talking to one another over the phone? And sending e-mails? And writing blogs? Haven't they got around to saying everything that needs to be said? Shouldn't the camera and the telephone soon fade into extinction, along with the computer?

Yes, all is well this morning at Gamone. The world is beautiful. And yet, when I observe that world through the Internet, I can't help feeling that it's Vegemite turtle crap all the way down. It takes a lot of imagination to envisage the global landscape in a positive sense, but Gamone provides me constantly with the necessary force. I'm like a monk who wakes up in his lonely cell, somewhat disillusioned, who needs to be impregnated by the Spirit in order to start his day of prayer.

Fine food for donkeys

At Gamone (and in most other places in France, I imagine), we're right in the middle of the dandelion season. That's to say, the slopes—including my lawn—are covered in yellow flowers, and they're about to be metamorphosed into spherical seed heads, ready to be blown into every available square centimeter of the neighborhood.

As usual, I've dragged out my electric lawnmower and made a valiant effort to remove the flowers on my lawn. But I can hear the vast hordes of dandelions on the outskirts of my lawn laughing at me cynically, since they'll be taking off shortly, in kamikaze squadrons, to make amends for their fallen brethren.

The green press often warns us that cattle fart noxious methane into the atmosphere, and that humanity would be much better off if we all resorted to eating kangaroo meat, since these Down Under beasts apparently fart more sweetly.

I don't know what my compatriots—not to mention the kangaroos themselves—might think of that great idea. It's a fact that the kangaroo appears on our national coat of arms, which—in the words of a militant vegetarian and nationalistic Aussie—must not be considered as a menu! Meanwhile, when I observe the huge annual stock of dandelions here at Gamone, I say to myself that it's a pity we can't all get around to eating rabbit meat, since everybody knows that they thrive on dandelions. Here's a photo (found on the web) of a champion Flemish Giant specimen, raised in Germany, capable of producing 8 to 10 kg of meat.

Admittedly, there might be an organizational problem in making sure that the herd of meat-producing rabbits settles down in exactly the places where you have a surplus of dandelions. And you would need to slaughter them all as soon as your dandelions run out… by which time the rabbits would have switched to eating the grass of your lawn. So, I'm not sure that my idea's well thought-out. Meanwhile, I've found that mowed dandelions and grass are fine food for donkeys, particularly when it's seasoned by a sprinkling of oats.

Neither Moshé nor Fanette needs such a supplement to their diet, of course, since they're both as plump as baby mammoths.

Maybe I prepared this fodder for the donkeys to symbolize my destruction of the dandelions… which was indeed a purely symbolic destruction.