Baby sea turtles.

We had a great family beach trip -eleven people in one house!

One of the highlights was seeing three baby sea turtles emerge from the nest and make their way to sea. I'd seen a loggerhead lay her eggs when I was younger and I saw the lifecycle completed watching these little Kemp's Ridley (a rare find in NC) skibble into the Atlantic.

I went up the dune to check the nest around 9:30 that morning with my nieces Kate and Alice. We were about to turn around when I saw something that appeared to be moving in the sand. Under closer inspection, I realized it was a baby sea turtle!

The poor little guy was on his back, so I flipped him over while my mom called the phone number listed on the nest, aka Charlie the turtle man. There were about 8 of us watching as he crawled instictively toward the water -he knew exactly what to do!

By the time Charlie the turtle man arrived, our little friend had already made his way out to sea.

Charlie proceeded to dig up the rest of the nest, in case there were any stragglers. Judging from the tracks surrounding the nest, the other 102 turtles had hatched during the night.

He found two little turtles that were very sandy and slightly overwhelmed -by this point, around 25 people had gathered on the beach to watch their descent. But they made it!

Pic Cagire.

Last weekend, Monsieur J and I set out for the Pyrénées. After an hour and a half, we arrived at the parking lot for the hike we'd planned to go on: pic Cagire. The information we'd found on the internet warned that the hike was steep, but well worth it for the beautiful views.

I can now confirm that this is an accurate description, though we added a detour.


Unfortunately, we got a little confused by the signage and turned left. This path seemed to wind around the mountain rather than climb up it, ooops. We were a little disappointed but still had lovely views to enjoy and lots of wildlife to take in.


It wasn't until about 2 hours later that we ran into a race. We asked the organizers how to get to the top of the peak and they recommended we turn right and follow the "runners." They weren't actually running, but were muscly creatures moving at quite a clip as they had to pace themselves for the 48 kilometer trek covering three peaks that they had signed up for.

We followed them until we arrived at a refuge, a set of two cabins intended for shepherds and hikers. The runners may have continued on past this checkpoint, but we stopped for sandwiches, cherries and a much needed break.


We asked the man recording the runners' times at the checkpoint how to get from the refuge back to the parking lot. He was curious to know how we'd gotten this far. When we explained the path we'd taken he stared at us in disbelief and bellowing of laughter said, "you turned left out of the parking lot? Do you realize that you added an extra 9 kilometers to your hike?"

He kindly explained that if we continued to follow the runners up to the peak and then down the mountain we would eventually reach the parking lot. Whew. What he failed to mention is that you need to be part mountain goat to reach the top.

The difference in elevation between the parking lot and the summit is somewhere in the neighborhood of 3280 feet; there was still snow on the ground. Translation: this probably wasn't the best idea for our first hike of the season, but I don't regret it.


My legs may have been sore several days afterwards but it's pretty hard to beat a beautiful hike in the mountains.

Getting ambitious on the balcony.

The balcony is like the rest of our apartment, which is to say it's petit.

You see, Monsieur J and I share a whopping 350 square feet of living space. Somehow it doesn't bother us. The good news is that barring a move to Hong Kong, Moscow, Paris or New York, we probably won't have to live anywhere smaller ever again. There's always a bright side!

What started as a small collection of plants on the balcony has morphed into some serious urban gardening over here on rue des fontaines. In addition to a thriving collection of cacti and succulents, we have a banana tree, an olive tree, a yucca, a lime tree, a grape vine, rosemary, basil and an overflowing pot of mint.

I'm here to confirm that we are officially reaching max capacity.

However, you may also remember a mention of tomato plants...


I think I told myself that cherry tomatoes would be smaller than regular tomatoes. Yes, this is true for the fruit, but not so much for the plants. They have gone from 6 inches to over 3 feet in three weeks. Fuzzy stems and yellow flowers are sprouting every which way, making it a real challenge to even access the other plants enough to water them. It's turning into a real jungle!


I'm hoping our harvest of delicious little cherry tomatoes will make this slightly crazy endeavor worth the effort. In the meantime, I love opening the door every morning to check and see what may have changed overnight. You'd be surprised at what can happen in the span of a few hours.

Today the banana tree presented a tightly coiled new leaf marked by a single drop of dew. A cactus that weathered an entire winter outside has recently revived itself and is now in bloom. Haricot vert is forever gravitating towards the sun; he just can't get enough.


Has anyone ever seen a plant like this before? We bought it at the market two years ago and I've never seen anything remotely similar since. We just call him green bean!

A walk in the Tarn

Few people have ever heard of the Tarn, a corner of southwestern France that borders Toulouse. In addition to producing some great budget-friendly wines (more to come on that soon!), there are plenty of villages worth visiting and there's good hiking to be had too. Now that I think about it, "hiking" may be a bit of an exaggeration. Hiking is what we do in the Pyrénées; this was more of an extended stroll through the countryside.

Supposedly we were only 45 minutes away from Toulouse and yet I felt as if we'd teleported to someplace infinitely farther away. Move over motorcycles, noisy neighbors and early morning garbage pick up; it's time to make way for fresh air, wildflowers, weeds and rusting farm equipment.

We parked the car in Villemur-sur-Tarn and set off on foot from la Place du souvenir. Our destination: la Croix de Peyre. Once you reach this landmark, three possible routes are possible depending on how much time you plan to spend. I think we turned left at the cross, but I was more distracted by the beautiful surroundings and general sense of calm.

dandelions and buttercups

lilacs everywhere

fence and flowering redbud

little blue guys

thistle and clover

curious farm things

inviting garden gate

Did I mention how good it feels to take a break from city living?

A week at the farm.

WWOOFing was definitely one of my favorite highlights of 2009, and so it was a wonderful surprise to hear Dominique’s voice on the other end of the line, asking if I’d be available to house-sit, or make that farm-sit, for one week in January while they went on vacation. Yes! I arrived on Monday afternoon and we spent the day going over the morning and evening routine for both plants and animals –straw, hay, water and grain for the rabbits; the logistics of moving the sheep from pen to pasture and back again; protecting the various lettuce plants from frost and rain, etc… That night we made dinner and visited, and then on Tuesday morning off they went, leaving me to tend the farm, read, drink tea, go on walks, cook and keep the fire in the wood-burning stove going strong so as not to freeze, brrrrr!

Monsieur J joined me on Thursday night, which worked out well because he too loves the farm. Come to think of it, I think most people would love the farm, though it does challenge accepted standards of cleanliness. So then again maybe some people couldn’t handle la ferme after all. At any rate, we took advantage of the drizzly Saturday to explore Cyril’s workshop and decided to build a small bench. It will get painted one of these days, a deep pastel blue like so many of the shutters you see in the south of France; that’s what I have in mind. And while it might not be sturdy enough for the two of us to sit on, it should be able to support a few plants.

I had a bench almost like this that I used as a coffee table when I lived in North Carolina and now my mom has it on her porch in Virginia, which makes me happy to know that she is enjoying it. If I ever had the kind of money it would take to ship some furniture to France, this bench would be at the top of my wish list. But since that is completely impractical, why not make one? All it took was one idea, a sketch, a plan, and some sawing, sanding, and nailing. And though we are far from practiced carpenters, I think it's safe to say that this is something we would both enjoy doing again. In the meantime, I am quite happy with our new little bench!