The rest of September

Courtesy of Groupon, we made a nice day-trip to Planet Exotica, an attraction in Royan, a two-hour drive from here, that specializes mostly in herps, snakes and lizards. We very much enjoyed the greenhouses. Cages of animals are surrounded by exotic plants. You can find photos here.

In July, we visited a glove factory in St Junien. This time we visited a tannery, the Mégisserie Columbier there. A mégisserie is a tannery specializing in the hides of small animals like sheep and goat; we don't seem to have an English word for this. They provide the leather that is used to make gloves as well as leather that is used to line helmets of the military. Some pictures are here.

Ed has been working on tiling the front porch, covering the bare concrete surface.

Not quite finished yet, but on the way. All the leaves in the neighborhood blow into our entryway.

We had a beautiful view of the lunar eclipse the other day. Set our alarms for 3am so we could get upt to see it arrive. And then again an hour later to see the totality.

Fall has really arrived. Nice crispy temperatures, with blue skies. Only occasional rains.  Nice weather, really.