What's been happening

Well, not much really. We're having a quiet time, with just the usual sort of stuff going on. Once a week, Kaye goes off for a line dancing lesson and Ed goes off for choir practice. On Palm Sunday, the choir sang for an extra service at the Montbron church; they usually sing just once a month there. Once a week or so we do our shopping. The grass gets mowed, the house gets cleaned, etc.

Friday afternoon Kaye went with a friend to find our closest library, in nearby Montemboeuf. It's officially open only a few hours three days each week. But it wasn't open Friday as the schedule says. Through the window it looks quite small, so we may look elsewhere for library facilities.

Friday evening we went to Montbron with English/Welsh and Irish neighbors to eat fish-and-chips sold by Dutch folks from a van. We sat to eat and drink at the Irish bar across the street. (Those Irish bars pop up just everywhere, don't they?) When it got to cool to sit outside, we moved inside to finish another round. In the course of the evening, one of Pogo's feet got tangled in the lead and scraped off the skin between two toes, although we didn't realize anything had happened at the time. When we got up to go we were surprised to find blood on the floor. The bleeding stopped quickly and he was OK on Saturday, but Sunday he was a three-legged puppy. So Monday morning we went to the vet. He got his hobbit toes shaved for a better look, then shots of antibiotic and painkiller, which made him quite happy. He's doing much better now, but still has a few more days of antibiotic and painkiller pills to go.

Recnetly, we were surprised to find a small orchid in the grass near the house. It's a bit stunted and looks like it might have been mowed already, but it got skipped in the next mowing. Unfortunately after this picture was taken, Pogo decided the stick marking the spot was a good one for chewing and he pretty well trampled the poor orchid while destroying the stick.

On the South Forty, we have a large group of these orchids (called a burnt orchid, Orchis ustulata) this year. Ed found this one and we've found six or seven others in the same area, just below the birches. When Ed was mowing around these last night, he found yet another one, a bit aside from the group. Supposedly this is not a rare orchid, but neither is it a common one. We haven't seen it anyplace else. It has tiny little flowers, as you can see.

Below the burnt orchids we have a single early purple orchid blooming. This is the common orchid that we see on the roadsides in this area. This one's hanging out with bluebells, which are all over the place right now.

We're having lovely summer, er, spring weather right now, warm temperatures and lots of sun. Rain is forecast for the weekend, which will be a Good Thing if it happens because we're in danger of serious water shortage this summer.