September's almost gone

The focus of September has been our orphan hedgehog. Harriet the Hérisson we call her. She even has her own Facebook page. She's due for release in early October. (The current plan is to make a single post here after her release with most of the info and pictures from Facebook and links to the videos, since blogspot seems unable to cope with those these days.) Here's a picture of her teenaged self on one of the first days she got to go outside.

This month was livened by two sets of visitors, both returning to the Netherlands from their vacations in Spain. Geo and Gea joined us for a day of touristing that we had already planned with friends. We all lunched and then had a tour of the town and the chateau at Villebois-Lavalette. This is one of the towns that claims to be the origin of the cornuelle, a triangular cookie that is traditional in this area for Palm Sunday. They use the symbol for markers on the street that indicate important sites in the town. We'd never noticed these before. The official story is that the triangle represents the trinity and the hole in the middle is there so that a large number of them can be carried from the bakers on a pole. Maybe.

The chateau at Villebois-Lavalette is not the lived-in kind but more of an archeological site. They are still excavating and there is much yet to be learned. The slots in the wall over the gate accommodated the mechanism for the drawbridge.

The chapel had a door on the outside of the walls for visitors to enter. There must have been several flights of stairs leading up to the outside entrance, because it's a long drop over the walls at this point. It's not possible to visit the chapel right now because the courtyard under the arch is being excavated.

Another treat for the month was a visit to another quilt exhibit. This was was more fiber art rather than traditional quilting, although they did have a pair of hundred-year-old quilts that were beautifully stitched. This was one of our favorites. The pansies are made by "flower hammering" where the color is transferred to the fabric by beating real flowers until the dyes are released.

Ed has finished painting and repairing shutters and moved on to the kitchen porch, which is now all repaired and repainted. Several panes of glass need to be replaced now, but we're hiring that out. The back is looking amazingly tidy now.

Kaye went for a one-day "mosaic taster" course and came back with this plaque that now needs a place to be hung.

Summer returned for September and we've had many warm and sunny days, frequently ended by beautiful sunsets.