Pink rock fragments

Accustomed to the usual colors of rocks around Gamone (gray, ochre, whitish and black), I was surprised to discover pink-hued fragments on the slopes, a few days ago, a hundred meters above the house.

Since these fragments were located in the middle of a flat pile of rocks covering a small zone of a few square meters, I first imagined that there might have been a fireplace at this spot. But that is almost certainly a false explanation. For the moment, therefore, this pleasant color remains a mystery.

Big-beaked finch has flown

An adjective that amuses me in the case of wild birds is "sedentary", which evokes a vision of a couple of tiny birds that have just flown in from Africa.

The male bird says to his wife:

"I don't know about you, dear, but I'm exhausted. In any case, I like this place. I got the address from a finch I ran into down in Morocco. He told me it's called Gamone, and the owner provides a regular stock of sunflower seeds. Why don't we settle down here for a while?" 

 And the female bird replies:

"Sure, dear, you're preaching to the choir. You know I've always told you I wouldn't mind leading a sedentary existence, at least for a while, instead of our usual jet-set lifestyle, traveling constantly from one land to another. I'd be happy to just sit around in the sun... as soon as it appears. And I'm sure we'd have more opportunities to spend time with the kids."

It's time that I got around to naming correctly the beautiful bird that stopped here at Gamone for a week or so. I used to referred to it disrespectfully, here, as the "Galapagos guy". That was a silly nickname, because everybody knows that the passerine birds studied by Charles Darwin on the Galapagos were not in fact real finches.

My ex-wife (and constant friend) Christine Mafart succeeded rapidly (I don't know how) in identifying my big-beaked visitor. He was a Hawfinch [Coccothraustes coccothraustes, known in French as a Gros-bec casse-noyaux]. I use the past tense "was" because I think my bird has finally flown, after a brief stay at Gamone. I'm left with a set of splendid images of this exotic big-beaked creature, while hoping that he'll retain my address for a visit next winter.

This morning, I found another family of finches hanging around in the same area.

These dark little birds don't match the majestic beauty of my glorious pink-legged big-beaked Hawfinch... who liked to tap on my bedroom window, imagining his mirror reflection as an alien bird. I hope he'll be back here at Gamone in a year's time.

Primroses in the snow

The burgeoning primroses of Gamone were surely surprised to discover that, during the night, flakes of late-winter snow had fallen upon their delicate cream petals.

This chilly remnant of the cold season will no doubt stimulate the tiny flowers, and incite them to hurry up in their urge to welcome the approaching spring. As they might say in Rome (if their Latin was as elementary as mine, and if they weren't preoccupied by other less natural arrivals): Habemus primulam, primum tempum. The primrose has arrived and, with it (soon, in any case), spring.

Owner of Gamone in 1823

For the first time in ages, I drove up to Grenoble yesterday and spent an hour or so in the archives. In the context of my research concerning the history of my house at Gamone, this short visit to the archives was most fruitful, in that I succeeded in obtaining the name and identity of the man who owned my house and property at Gamone some two centuries ago. Let me explain how this happened.

A few years after crowning himself in the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, on 2 December 1804, in the presence of the pope Pius VII, the emperor Napoléon Bonaparte created the interesting concept of a national cadastre: that's to say, a vast map indicating the ownership of every fragment of real estate in France. Here in the corner of the Isère department where I live, the Napoleonic cadastre was only published—as indicated in the following oval title box [called a cartouche in French]—on 19 March 1823, a year or so after the death of the former emperor on the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.

[Click to enlarge]

Here's an outline of the central parcels of the Napoleonic cadastre for my house (parcel #717) and land at Gamone:

Today, my property includes parcel #723 (a former vineyard) as well as a group of additional parcels up in the top left-hand region of the map. As indicated in the diagram, I discovered yesterday that my Gamone property was owned in 1823 by Michel Grégoire Tézier [1761-1833], the mayor of the neighboring village of Pont-en-Royans... shown in this spectacular panoramic photo that I found on the web:

[Click to enlarge]

Now that I've unearthed the identity of this eminent landowner (who had used his personal fortune to acquire real estate that came onto the market in the wake of the French Revolution, when the great religious establishments were disbanded, and their possessions sold), I should be able to move further backwards in time, and discover the exact identity of the owner of Gamone on the eve of the French Revolution.

What is there in common...

... between me and the Sistine Chapel?

Did I hear somebody say that, what's in common is that both William and the Sistine Chapel are fine examples of Renaissance splendor? Well, if you insist... but that's not the right answer. I'll give you a hint. The answer to my question has something to do with our respective roofs (or rooves, if you prefer).

Here's the answer.

Like me, the people at the Sistine Chapel are installing a new chimney on their roof.

Here's my Gamone chimney, which I intend to install as soon as possible.

I don't know what brand of chimney the Sistine Chapel has decided upon, but I can assure them that the French-manufactured Poujoulat product is excellent.

As soon as my new chimney and wood stove are installed, I intend to test the system by burning some old papers. If all goes well (that's to say, if the chimney joints are all OK), then I should see white smoke emerging from my new chimney. (If not, it's my house that's likely to fill up with white smoke.) Now, to avoid potential misunderstandings, I want to make it perfectly clear, by means of the present blog post, that I have no intention whatsoever of electing an antipope at Gamone. On the other hand, I cannot deny that I've often thought that my dog Fitzroy has all the necessary qualities for that job. There's a technical problem, though. Fitzroy has not yet become a cardinal.

Change of clothes

Over the last two days, the sun has reappeared at Gamone, after weeks of damp overcast skies. I decided to take out my my warm-weather working clothes, to give them an airing.

As you can see, from a sartorial viewpoint, they're not particularly attractive. I've been thinking that it might be a good idea for me to change to bright garments of the following kind:

Admittedly, if I were to start wearing stuff like that when I'm working outside at Gamone, I would have to make sure that Fitzroy didn't jump up onto me with his muddy paws, as he usually does. My summer hats, too, are rather dull:

Something of the following kind would add a gay note to Gamone:

There's no doubt about it: the ex-pope had a fabulous taste in clothes, and I'm sure we'll all miss him. Personally, I was particularly impressed by his early gold period, when Benny looked like an ancient Aztec chief.

Attired in gold lamé, the pope had a kind of Elvis look, which surely appealed to Catholic youth throughout the world.

Benny's gold period was a trend-setter for an all-too-brief moment. If only he had stuck to his job until the bitter end, the full impact of the pope's influence upon fashion would have been recognized throughout the world. Today, in any case, Catholics everywhere are hoping that his successor will look just as elegant as Benny.

Exotic winter vegetation

At this time of the year, rare species have started to bloom on the slopes of Gamone.

The long thorns of the ice tree are as sharp as daggers, making it difficult to pick the fruit.

The soft white blossoms of snow flowers are extremely delicate, making it impossible to gather a bunch.

Galapagos guy

The bird I've nicknamed the "Galapagos guy" is a finch that I presented in a blog post on the eve of Darwin Day [display]. He seems to like the general atmosphere at Gamone, which wet and snowy these days.

In any case, he has moved in here permanently. He never enters the wooden bird house where I put sunflower seeds for the yellow-and-black tits. The Galapagos guy dines outdoors at all times, in all kinds of weather.

Besides, he seems to prefer to dine alone, and gets upset whenever a tit dares to join him for dinner.

He tried for a while to use aggressive body language to scare away intruders. But thankfully, at this level, he appears to be evolving towards a certain degree of sociability.

I often wonder whether, deep in the mind of each tiny creature, they realize that they're all members of the bird family. Probably not. After all, they are a still a lot of people who refuse to admit that we humans are all members of a single family.

Please excuse the poor quality of my bird photos. There's simply not enough light at Gamone these days, and I'm trying to take photos through the double thickness of glass in my bedroom windows. Incidentally, the birds don't seem to notice my presence behind the window glass, provided I don't move. Even Fitzroy likes to spend long moments there, observing calmly the birds. As for the Galapagos guy, he apparently notices his own mirror reflection at times, and he starts to peck furiously on the glass, trying to chase himself away.

Singalong

Recently, I received a short visit from my cousin Mitchell Smith and his wife Melissa, who are medical practitioners in Sydney.

On the eve of their departure, Mitchell noticed my daughter's small upright piano, and asked me if I happened to play at times. The instrument has been out of tune for ages, and I hardly ever touch it these days. I nevertheless sat down at the piano and started to strike the keys in my typical amateurish style. I was amazed to find that my dog Fitzroy started instantly to howl. The more I played, the more he howled. So, I decided, on the spur of the moment, to join up with Fitzroy for a rough recital of the famous doggy-in-the-window song. And Melissa had the presence of mind to record our performance for posterity.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx6Zw5mzKDs&feature=youtu.be

POST SCRIPTUM: Tineke and Serge have just dropped in, and I showed them this amusing video. Then I sat down at the piano and played a bit, to see how my dog would react. As in the video, Fitzroy started to howl immediately. My friends speculated that the dog might in fact be howling in discomfort, as a consequence of painful vibrations in the piano sounds. I think we must admit the plausibility of this hypothesis, because a dog's auditory system is different to ours. In other words, it's a bit silly to jump to the anthropomorphic conclusion that Fitzroy is surely howling with joy because he "likes my music".

Another minor fact tends to disprove completely, however, the all-too-easy conclusion that Fitzroy's howling indicates suffering. These days, in my personal dog vocabulary, there's a trivial term—pronounced a little like a soft "hurrah" (derived from my own failed attempts, months ago, at producing sounds supposed to resemble a wolf's howl)—that is a sufficient cue for Fitzroy to start howling loudly. In other words, this term "turns on" his howling like a kitchen tap, and he stops howling as soon as I pronounce any other word. So, it's a kind of silly game. He also howls whenever he hears a donkey braying (even from afar), and he howls too (with genuine excitement, I believe) whenever he's observing a pack of hunting hounds pursuing a wild boar on the slopes opposite Gamone. So, Fitzroy's howling seems to emanate from some deep archaic corner of his brain, where it's a reaction to stimuli of several different and seemingly unrelated kinds. As for genuine pain, Fitzroy got an unexpected taste yesterday when I was giving a bit of hay to my neighbor's donkeys, and Fitzroy was jumping around my legs in such an excited way that he was likely to cause me to stumble onto the 10,000 volts of the electric fence (which Fitzroy himself darts under at a speed greater than that of electricity). When I gave my dog a slight kick that connected harmlessly with his backside, he didn't howl, nor did he even bark. He yelped... and scrambled back instantly to annoy the donkeys and me. 

BREAKING NEWS: I've just found a practical use for Fitzroy's howling talent. My neighbor Madeleine phones me from time to time to tell me that my dog is roaming around on the road in the vicinity of her house, and causing her own dog to bark. When I reply that Fitzroy is in fact dozing on the floor alongside my desk (meaning that Madeleine has seen another stray black dog), I often have the impression that she thinks I'm telling her a lie. Five minutes ago, when Madeleine told me that she could actually see my dog sitting on the roadside near her house, I replied: "Madeleine, I'll put Fitzroy on the phone, so he can assure you personally that he's here beside me." Then I used the magic word to turn on Fitzroy's instant howling. The demonstration was fabulous. I've rarely heard my dog howling so loudly and so enthusiastically. I had the impression that he was determined to get things straight with Madeleine, and make matters perfectly clear. I didn't turn him off until I was sure that the message had got through to Madeleine... who, by that time, was in a fit of confused laughter.

Finch drops in for sunflower seeds

In this poor-quality photo—taken yesterday through the smudgy glass of my bedroom window on an overcast afternoon—the little creamy-hued tit seems to be awed by the massive beak of the finch.

The visitor loitered on the edge of the clay pot for about five minutes, during which time no tit dared to dive in for a sunflower seed.

I don't see many finches at Gamone. Rare visitors impress me and obtain my respect (I'm as awed as a tit) in the sense that I've always imagined finches as co-inventors, in the company of Charles Darwin on the Galapagos Islands, of the principle of evolution.

Clearly, if this solitary finch happened to go out of its way to visit an evolutionary enthusiast at Gamone, I would imagine that the bird was aware of the approach of Darwin Day [display], which falls tomorrow, on 12 February.

[I'm aware that Darwin's so-called "finches" were not in fact common chaffinches of the Gamone variety.]

To celebrate Darwin Day, I urge you to visit the WWF website [access] and sign a petition aimed at "killing the trade that kills the elephant".

BREAKING NEWS (announced an hour ago)
Miracle on the eve of Darwin Day: Benny 16 resigns!
Darwinians of the world, let us unite and launch a lobby designed to spread a great idea: namely, that nobody should ever replace a pope who has resigned.

Carport update

As soon as winter sets in here at Gamone, it becomes difficult to pursue any kind of outdoor work. Consequently, construction of my carport hasn't advanced a lot since the end-of-year progress report [display]. When I stopped working on the site in the middle of January, it looked like this:

As you can see, the tiled roof was finished, and I was starting to fill in the triangular zone above the roof with narrow reddish planks of tough larch (mélèze in French), which is highly water-resistant. And I had ordered all the necessary timber to board up the sides of the future carport (in ordinary pine), so that a vehicle left there overnight would not be covered in ice the following morning.

At that stage, however, my construction was marred by two almost invisible but annoying defects. On the one hand, I had failed to lop off the extremities of the four horizontal beams upon which the roof has been built. Professional observers warned me that, however esthetic they might look, these protruding ends would be an invitation for dampness and rot to invade the beams. The problem was complicated by the fact that these extremities concealed the ends of nails holding down the outside rafters. Besides, I had boarded up the sides of the tiling, which meant that it would be hard to find a good angle in the use of a saw to cut off the extremities of the beams. Despite these problems, my friend Serge Bellier (a former house carpenter) confirmed that these extremities would have to be removed.

The second defect was far more serious. I had inserted into my carport various pieces of used timber that I had recuperated from a demolished wood shed. Among these, the four horizontal beams gave the vague impression that they might be sagging—ever so little, and almost imperceptibly—under the weight of the tiles. Without hesitating, I decided that each of these old beams should be strengthened by means of an identical new beam, to be bolted onto the old one. But, when I took delivery of this new timber, I soon realized that it would not be a simple task to insert them into the existing structure.

Fortunately, Serge dropped around last Saturday afternoon, and he soon succeeded in solving all these problems. So, here's a closeup view (with snowdrops) that shows how he had used a chainsaw to lop off neatly the extremities of the old beams.

And here's an inside view (also with streaks of falling snow) that shows how we managed to wedge in four new beams, which I shall soon attach to the old ones by means of sturdy bolts.

There's still a lot of work to be done before I can call it a carport (even though I've already started to park my old Citroën underneath). But I'm now confident that the initial defects have been corrected. Serge told me that, if I had been his carpentry apprentice, he would have been pleased to see that I made an effort to correct my building blunders. For the moment, though, he wouldn't be prepared to look upon me as a competent carport builder, and award me an apprentice's diploma, until I had erected correctly, all on my own, another dozen or so similar structures. So, I'm not yet in a position to start looking around for jobs as an independent and experienced tradesman.

Birth of a beetle at Gamone

Twenty minutes ago, while seated in front of my computer screen and reading the news of momentous events throughout the planet Earth and beyond, I was surprised by the buzzing sound of an insect that hurtled diagonally across my screen and landed on a corner of my desk. Thinking it was an unwelcome blowfly, I was about to squash it with a blow of my fist. Fortunately, miraculously, an angel arrived instantly above my Macintosh and seized my murderous hand.

It wasn't a blowfly. (I'm referring to the insect, not the angel.) I was confronted by a tiny coccinellid (ladybird), which I immediately clasped gently between my fingertips and laid on the outside sill of the bathroom window.

It had probably emerged recently from its pupa in a warm corner of my bedroom, and my intervention amounted to inviting the tiny creature to visit the outside world of Gamone, where my rose bushes will soon be offering a good food supply of tasty aphids. For several years now, whenever I spot ladybirds, I've attempted to nudge them into their optimal setting for proliferation. The survivors (like the little fellow I've just encountered) probably don't realize it, but they should look upon me as a Good Beetle Samaritan. Meanwhile, I admire the simplicity of a Wikipedia rendition of ladybird anatomy.

Ah, if only the totality of the marvelous science of anatomy were to have been reduced to this kind of splendid lucidity, I would have mastered it instantaneously and completely, and I might have become a great doctor, a celebrated surgeon capable of grafting robotic synthetic shells onto the wings of injured beetles, a ladybird Nobel...

Wild boar shot at Gamone

Suddenly, yesterday afternoon, I heard hounds barking furiously up beyond my neighbor's house, probably in the muddy bed of Gamone Creek. The frenetic tone of the yelping suggested that the dogs had cornered a wild boar, and that a mortal combat was taking place. Curiously, there were no hunters in sight. For a moment, I thought about wandering up the slopes to see what was happening. I realized immediately that this might be an unwise excursion, because I did not relish the idea that Fitzroy and I might suddenly find ourselves face-to-face with a wild beast, and maybe even in the midst of gunfire. Fortunately, a white utility vehicle soon appeared in the vicinity of the barking, and a couple of armed hunters emerged. A minute later, a single shot rang out across the valley... and the barking stopped. I decided to take a look at the scene. At the level of Jackie's place, I met up with a team of three hunters, one of whom was dragging a dead beast up out of the creek. They informed me immediately (without my asking) that they were not from Choranche, but from the neighboring commune of St-André-en-Royans, on the other side of the northern ridge above Gamone. Their hounds had strayed, as it were, from St-André down into Choranche, where they had come upon this solitary boar. Consequently, the hunters were obliged to kill the beast in order to save their dogs. Overhearing their phone conversations with fellow hunters, I soon gathered that these fellows from St-André didn't really know exactly where they were located. Besides, they seemed to fear that they might run into problems with the Choranche hunters.

I had refrained from bringing along my Nikon, because hunters are not necessarily the kind of folk who like to be photographed. I soon realized that this had been a wise choice, because these particular hunters seemed to be a little disturbed by their chance encounter with a wild boar at this unexpected spot. So, I'm illustrating this blog post with a beautiful photo of a live wild boar, in a typical muddy creek setting, that I found on the web.

                                                                                — Richard Bartz

By the time the slain boar of Gamone had been dragged up onto the road, dozens of other hunters had arrived on the scene, in a convoy of vehicles. The fur of the black beast, which seemed to be sleeping, was spotless. But I was stunned and distraught by the appearance of the pack of four hounds that had participated in the final combat. They were covered in layers of pink blood. And I soon learned that it was blood from the dogs themselves, two of whom had been severely wounded in the encounter with the wild boar. But the hounds gave no signs of suffering. They appeared to be contented, in their ancestral element of wolves pitted against a ferocious prey. For the dogs, a little blood and patches of skin torn apart by the tusks of a wild boar were neither here nor there. My homely Fitzroy (accustomed to watching TV, spread out in my lap in front of the fireplace) was surely impressed by these bloody canine gladiators, chained up at the rear of their master's vehicle. Urban observers (and I count myself in their numbers, even though I inhabit the savage slopes of an Alpine environment) have lost contact with those archaic ages of bloody conflicts, perpetuated these days by the hunters and their hounds.

When I first settled down in Gamone, 20 years ago, I looked upon hunters, naively and stupidly, as uncouth and troublesome neighbors. I have understood, since then, that these men remain the surviving priesthood of obscure archaic forces that we must respect perpetually and maybe seek to control... but never condemn nor abandon.

Fitzroy's favorite positions

Fitzroy has developed the habit of sitting down at the top of the stairs, with his rump and hind legs on the landing, and his front paws on the first step.

Not only is it a comfortable position, but it allows my dog to meditate upon his next move, which will depend of course upon the next displacement of his master (me). Should Fitzroy scramble down to the ground floor? Or would he do better to remain on the upper floor, based upon the assumption that his master is merely visiting momentarily the second bedroom or the bathroom?

This photo reveals that everything in that vicinity is covered in a thick layer of white dust (which I've decided to ignore for the moment). The origins of that dust can be traced to the shiny metallic column seen behind Fitzroy in the following photo:

It's a tube of galvanized steel, 1.33 m long and 30 cm in diameter, incorporating an interior tube of stainless steel, 18 cm in diameter, which is the initial segment of a chimney for a future wood stove on the ground floor.

Here's a precise schema of the entire system that I'm building:

[Click to enlarge]

On the ground floor, I intend to install a French-manufactured Invicta Sedan 10 cast-iron wood stove (which I don't intend to purchase until the chimney system is completed):

The stove (poêle in French) will be placed on a step between the kitchen and the living room. For the passage of the stovepipe, 15 cm in diameter (shown in brown in my schema), I had to hack a hole in the massive slab of reinforced concrete (dalle in French), 20 cm thick, between the ground and the upper floor. Here's a poor-quality photo (looking up at the ground-floor ceiling) that shows the present state of the completed hole:

The verb "hack" is quite appropriate, as I was obliged to work blindly with an assortment of diamond disc grinders, drills, chisels and hammers. And that explains the presence in the house of all the white dust. When I say that I worked "blindly", what I mean is that I didn't know with certainty, in the beginning, how to avoid damaging any vital beams in the slab (such as the one on the right, with a red line traced on it). In other words, I was obliged to perform my hacking solely in the region occupied by hollow-core concrete planks (with the typical grainy texture that you can see in the above photo). The initial problem, of course, was that the layout of the beams and planks was concealed behind a layer of plaster, which I first had to chip away. Naturally, once the stove is correctly installed, I'll be able to tidy up the rough edges of my hacking... but it's too early to worry about such trivial aspects of my construction project.

In the schema, you can see that I've been obliged to introduce a twist in the chimney tubes at the level of the first floor, just before it ascends into the attic (grenier in French). That's because I encountered an unexpected obstacle when I pierced the suspended ceiling (faux plafond in French) above the first floor: a huge reinforced concrete beam, whose vital role consists of helping to hold in place the ancient stone walls of the house.

The tube seen in the above photos with Fitzroy is therefore the first of a series of 8 or 9 elements leading up to the final object in the system: an external roof chimney. I've already ordered this object from the same excellent French manufacturer who makes all the stovepipes and tubes: Poujoulat. Taking into account the inevitable delays due to tomorrow's Mayan end-of-the-world and the Christmas festivities, I would predict that my future wood stove should become operational at around the height of winter, some time in February. Up until then, I can rely, of course, on the good old open fireplace in the living room, whose major weakness is that it tends to warm only those parts of the body that are facing the flames, leaving you constantly with a chilly backside.

Talking of the fireplace, Fitzroy has developed another habit, which consists of waiting until I've lit up the fire and settled down in front of the flames with a good book, or to watch TV. Then, without asking for my opinion on the matter, Fitzroy scrambles up onto my knees and snuggles in for a warm snooze. If I try to push him back down onto the floor, my dog uses all the force of his powerful legs and claws to hang on tightly. So, I usually don't insist any further, preferring to take pleasure in Fitzroy's warm somnolent presence. He nevertheless becomes heavy after a while, and I have to guide carefully the mass of my sleeping dog back down onto the floor, where he sits upright, still half-asleep, with his head and paws supported by my knees and the tip of his backside poised on the floor. Finally, he wakes up completely, gets the message, and finds a new position outstretched on the floor. (Unfortunately, I can't supply readers with images of the delightful operations that I'm describing.)

Observers might say that I'm an excessively permissive master.

Hanging donkey shed of Gamone

A few days ago, I was woken up by a phone call from my neighbor Jackie, who informed me that the constant rain over the last week or so had finally resulted in a small landslide at the level of his donkey stable. And Jackie's car was blocked, meaning that his wife was unable to get to her teaching job. By the time I had dressed and made myself a cup of strong Ethiopian coffee, René Uzel had arrived on the scene with his mini-excavator.

By the end of the day, René had moved all the fallen rocks and mud to the other side of the road, onto my property. (During the morning, the mayor of Choranche had actually dropped in at my place, to ask for my permission for this operation.)

The donkey shed looked strange in its new setting. Jackie considers that the concrete floor of the shed has held it in place on the rim of the embankment.

[Click to enlarge]

But personally, I wouldn't bet on the shed remaining in that precarious position for too long. Meanwhile, this image of the donkey shed reminds me of the famous hanging houses of Pont-en-Royans, just down the road.

As far as I know, no building has ever slid off the cliff and fallen into the Bourne. In certain cases, it's hard to understand the static forces that hold the outhouses and balconies in place.

Maybe, in the future, the donkey shed at Gamone will still be settled on the brink of the embankment, and tourists will come to Gamone to take photos of the amazing structure.

POST SCRIPTUM: Jackie's donkey shed at Gamone was built about ten years ago by my former neighbor Bob. I often used to ask Bob whether he wasn't afraid that he had placed his construction at a fragile spot, close to the edge of the crumbling embankment. He would reply laughingly that it would take ages before all the stones beneath his shed dropped off. He was forgetting, of course, that the periodic fall of a few stones must be seen as evidence that an invisible aquatic process is in play, and that the inevitable outcome will be that loose stones and gravel, instead of merely dropping off, will start to slide.

In my two photos of the naked embankment, you might be able to make out a horizontal layer of big blocks of stone, halfway down. This is a stratum of the "poor man's stone" named marne in French (marl or mudstone in English), found in many places throughout the land. If you click the following closeup view of the embankment, to enlarge it, you can clearly distinguish the big blocks of marl, with good earth above them, and clay below.

[Click to enlarge]

Far more fragile than genuine limestone, the marl ends up developing fissures, or breaking into pieces, and this fragmentation "guides" trickles of subterranean water down the slopes, where they emerge at one place or another (often changing locations) in the form of "springs". In the present case, the heavy upper layer of waterlogged earth has ended up sliding slowly but surely on the slippery surface of the marl.

Ever since I've been living at Gamone, I find myself explaining constantly (often to local folk who should know better) that the phenomenon above my house that I often refer to loosely as a "spring" is in fact merely an emerging rivulet that has flowed down along the marl layer. Unlike a genuine spring (whose waters come from deep underground), the water obtained from a marl outlet does not flow constantly at all times of the year. For example, for several months of the year, my "spring" at Gamone delivers huge quantities of water (which are then channeled down through surface drains into the nearby creek), but it dries up completely from the start of summer until the middle of autumn. So, you can't count upon a marl outlet as a supply of domestic water.

I should have mentioned that Jackie's donkeys are not at all disturbed by the new situation that has arisen at Gamone, since they now have the possibility of residing in the section of the stable that Jackie had reserved up until now for keeping the supply of hay.

And no intelligent donkey would ever complain about being obliged to reside in a place that's stacked with fresh hay. Normally, there was a wooden barrier intended to prevent the animals from having a constant self-service relationship with the fodder, but four sturdy donkeys form a very good team for breaking down barriers of that kind.