It’s coming up to the end of February – when local lore has it that frosts are past and we can get planting in the garden. But winter has blasted back this week and spring looks a way off yet.
In January sunrise was around 8, sunset 17.30 and Isabelle urged me to come out while she was pruning at Lazagal, and see it rise over Montbrun ridge. La taille starts soon after the last leaves have fallen and the sap has returned to the roots, from November until the sap starts rising in March or April, when it can be sipped from the stem, clear & faintly sweet.
Temperatures often plunge below zero – with the Tramontane wind (local name: le cers > say: sairss) capable of 50+kph for days on end. It’s tough work even with electric clippers – that can take off a finger. That’s the heavy red battery-pack on her back.
Isabelle’s daughter Hélène is expecting her third baby anytime now – an early spring baby. Hélène was once the wild child of the village – “bound to come to no good . . . ” – who is now a solid citizen of the République, doing her bit for the country (which was falling behind with its birth-rate).
We’re getting gusts of 85 kph today . . .
La cloche du matin vient de sonner six heures,
À l’âtre le sarment brûle dans cent demeures;
Sur l’ordre à lui donné par Saint-Vincent martyr,
Le rude vigneron se dispose à partir.
Au dehors il fait froid, mais qu’importe à cet homme?
Il a chaud, il a bu son classique rogomme;
Satisfait de son sort, il s’en va tout joyeux
Braver de février le temps dur et pluvieux.
D. Violart 1878
With the woeful state of the wine market, and vineyards being torn up all over the region, the idea of the ‘vigneron content with his lot’ and setting forth at six am ‘joyfully’ is well out of date (if ever true).
More probable is the amount of rogomme or local brandy, he has drunk.
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