Just a ittle something....

Here are some shots of the "Hotel de la Préfecture" built in 1822. It would be the equivalent of a county governor. These are the offices and I went to when I received my French nationalité. Now I tutor the prefet's children twice a week. Here are some shots from the internet....not all of these rooms are among the residential part where I actually go, but it gives you an idea. 

Then and now.....                                                                                                                                                     the residential quarters are in the wing to the left of the double doors and flag. 

Here's a shot taken on the sly by me. Looking down from the 2nd floor landing. This is in their living quartiers. I also double,

 triple check to make sure the soles of my shoes are clean, before I head up the stairs. You know Caen and their dogs...

 

Chênedouit

 

A rainy but productive long weekend for craft projects. 

The bird nests that I've been sitting on for years, finally are displayed properly.

The willow tree that I planted a few weeks ago is still alive and to it's left I planted another peony. I put two in along the house a month ago and they have defintely enjoyed all of the recent rain, so hopefully this one will do just as well. 

A peony a friend of mine gave me years ago has lots of flowers this year.

 The flowers will probably bloom the day after I leave;) 

I did cut one to take home....we'll see if it opens.

I planted the garden: two types of pumpkin, red bell pepper, 2 cucumbers, yellow zuchinni, red beets, rainbow chard, eggplant, yellow cherry tomatoes (I'm not holding my breath, I don't have luck with tomatoes) lettuce, cilantro and basil. The bushes on the right are raspberries and on the left with the stalks with whitish flowers is my rhubarb. I cut enough to make 4 jars of jam this afternoon. 

Proof that Texas does actually venture outside a bit. 

Not long and not often, but on rare occasion.

And a lovely rusted out coffee tin, that's been in the dépendance since we bought the place. Since it has no bottom or top, I can't store anything in it, but I just can't seem to part with it.

 

Open house....

 So, since the weather was so rainy this weekend,                                                                                                       I spent a fair amount of time inside. Got me thinking that you may not have seen the place lately, or ever. So here you go...a little tour. 

The life changer of having hot water and a shower. The silver panel on the bathtub is actually a piece of textured copper that we eventually painted this silver color. I was hesitant, but like it better like this. 

The music / reading corner...

complete with a framed portrait of the previous owners.

 Strange that we still have it (it was here with lots of other stuff when we moved in, 

and have never parted with it. )

The blue background also goes with our deco, so there you go. 

There wasn't a guard rail when we bought the place 

so we built these shelves in place of it. 

Mom's Door Co. mobile that she sent me. This picture doesn't do it justice. 

It is in the perfect place.

Our View from the upstairs window looking over our back field. 

It's been raining here for the past two weeks...

everything is super lush and green.

Here's the living room...in progress. 

This is the view out of the southwest facing living room windows....

this is northwest across the road,

and here's looking out of our kitchen door.

Illegal Chênedouit time...

 We were supposed to be confined to Caen for the lockdown in mid April, but being the criminals you all know and love, we high tailed it to the country to spend a week at the house. 

Our neighbor's to die for magnolia tree...

getting some oxygen...

So I decided to "fix up" our little stone wall. 

Not that there was anything wrong with it per say....

I guess I just felt like digging...for two afternoons. 

And boom, it was done.

 

And it was a bit contagious,                                                                                                                     because a few days after Stef and Seb tidied up the one along the house. 

And with that digging project done, I needed another.                                                                                  Time to hoe the vegetable garden. 

Presto...finished! like 4 hours later.                                                                                                                  I slept very well that night.

Those three rows of green are parsley that came back from last year. 

I come home with ziplock backs full for my freezer. I'll never have to buy parsley again. 

All that hard work deserved a nice prime rib on the grill with some fried apple fritters for dessert.

Guns N' Roses / Chênedouit fashion baby....

With most of the work done and a beautiful blue sky, Seb and I went for a bike ride the next day. 

Beacause all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. 

We squeezed in a bit of time with the BB gun before calling it a night and realising that we had a serious case of sunburn from our afternoon on the bikes. It was nice to go back to work with a nice tan though, a few days later:)