hey im gonna try to write this real quick becuase i dont have a lot of time on the net. ALL IS WELL here in Thines, a tiny mountain village in the Ardeche region of france. i'm living with a nice old couple in their rustic home and working in their organic gardens. they've got all sorts of vines and tomatoes and peaches and lettuce and everything. the days are long - we leave the house at 8 am and get home around 9pm (and eat an hour or 2 later!), though i dont reall work a 13 hour day because we spend at least an hour total in the truck, and we take a nice long break in the middle, as it is too hot out to work. i personally dont think its that bad - september in LA is worse - but if the boss says don't work, MOST OF THE TIME i don't. each day after lunch i have gone swimming in the river that runs by the farm, which is pretty nice. uuhhhhh what else these mountains are beautiful, though not necessarily too big, but i'm happy here. working hard and getting really excited to come home.
let me leave it at that.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
lately
i have been having a nice montpellier vacation. going to the beach and to the river, music festival in town, playing guitar. i have a friend visiting this week, michael prude from pomona, which will allow me to play the amount of frisbee i've been needing. then saturday i head off for my WWOOFing stay. gotta run now, hope all is well at home.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
some photos
to go with my life lately. some old, some new, all from other people's cameras. enjoy!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2106082&id=13308828&l=7462ca5573
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2106082&id=13308828&l=7462ca5573
Friday, June 12, 2009
update
sorry folks for the lack of blogging lately, hope you haven't been checking too often ;-) aaaanyway, there has been no internet chez Bassouls lately, and i'm done with my first vineyard session. in review, that was a nice 3 weeks of sometimes hard work but i was real happy and learned a lot. what i have yet to do, however, is find an ORGANIC vineyard that will have me, because that is where i will do the learning necessary for my Oldenborg Travel Grant and presentation next fall. i've got one set up for the end of the month (june 27 to july 11, i might not have internet during that time) but am working now to get some work in right away. fingers crossed.
for lack of work/internet/school, however, i've been hanging out, playing guitar, doing pushups, sleeping, etc. oh yeah and my parents visited me last week, which was really nice. we dined with my host family and the family of the vintner i was working for, and we drove around and saw some ancient and pretty little towns, and a lot of pink flamingos. beautiful!
wednesday i went to the beach with some new friends the first of which i met through hockey. really nice kids, self-described with the french word "geek" (i mean, its probably an english word) so of course we all get along pretty well. yesterday they took me to a place called Pont du Diable to play in the river. this trip was magnificent and when i have photos i'll share them, that's probably the best way to explain what it was like.
thats all for now and hope you are all enjoying your summer.
for lack of work/internet/school, however, i've been hanging out, playing guitar, doing pushups, sleeping, etc. oh yeah and my parents visited me last week, which was really nice. we dined with my host family and the family of the vintner i was working for, and we drove around and saw some ancient and pretty little towns, and a lot of pink flamingos. beautiful!
wednesday i went to the beach with some new friends the first of which i met through hockey. really nice kids, self-described with the french word "geek" (i mean, its probably an english word) so of course we all get along pretty well. yesterday they took me to a place called Pont du Diable to play in the river. this trip was magnificent and when i have photos i'll share them, that's probably the best way to explain what it was like.
thats all for now and hope you are all enjoying your summer.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
voila
Yesterday, today, and probably for the rest of the week, I’m working about 6 hours in the vines. Not ideal, I prefer to go somewhere with my boss and move boxes. But it’s not so bad. The thing is, we have a task like raise this wire and pluck the shoots off the bottom of the vine, which takes a person maybe a little less than an hour to do, each row of vines. But this guy has like 36 hectares of vines… totally impossible to do by yourself, or in less than a couple week. Either way, one menial task for chunks of a few hours kinda bugs me. When I have my own vines, it’s going to be a small enough quantity that I can take care of it myself, or at least put energy into until it’s done. Either way, I’ve been working hard, even though I didn’t until today get around to asking my boss if I’ll be paid (good news folks… 30 euros a day is much better than nothing)
I just spent a 4-day weekend at the beach, at my friend Alexandra’s place in Valras, where I’ve gone one time before. It was a bit cloudy, but we saw some real nice patches and got some swimming in. low points include a stolen Frisbee and a lost pair of sunglasses (NOT the first time i’ve tried to swim with shades on… luckily they had cost me $5) but overall very pleasant.
Sunday night I played ice hockey, real ice hockey (with full gear and clean ice and full-sized goals and the whole arena and everything!), for the first time this semester. And last night I played roller hockey for the first time all semester. That was really great because the level of play was a lot tougher than anything else I played this semester. I sweat a lot. I just came from ultimate, and worked an extra long day in the field. I can't remember ever being this physically tired. Tomorrow its back to the vines then pickup hockey. Whew! i'm going to sleep.
I just spent a 4-day weekend at the beach, at my friend Alexandra’s place in Valras, where I’ve gone one time before. It was a bit cloudy, but we saw some real nice patches and got some swimming in. low points include a stolen Frisbee and a lost pair of sunglasses (NOT the first time i’ve tried to swim with shades on… luckily they had cost me $5) but overall very pleasant.
Sunday night I played ice hockey, real ice hockey (with full gear and clean ice and full-sized goals and the whole arena and everything!), for the first time this semester. And last night I played roller hockey for the first time all semester. That was really great because the level of play was a lot tougher than anything else I played this semester. I sweat a lot. I just came from ultimate, and worked an extra long day in the field. I can't remember ever being this physically tired. Tomorrow its back to the vines then pickup hockey. Whew! i'm going to sleep.
Monday, May 18, 2009
as ordered
why don't i tell you guys a little more about what's going on these days.
i just spent a lovely weekend here in the south of france. saturday i was home chez Bassoul, sunday in Avignon hanging out with my mom! we had a real nice time, pretty much eating our way through town: cafe, spring rolls, sausage, strawberries, another cafe, paella, ice cream. the best part is i get to see my folks again in just a couple weeks ;-)
the vineyard is going real well. the family is not hosting me, which turns out is for the better because i ride my bike to and from and it takes 15-20 minutes, which is eeeeeaaasy. i've been getting there by 9:00 and normally staying till 5:00. at the vineyard, i would put my activities into 4 categories, in order from least to most favorite.
1/ working in the vine. lots of moving around of cables that support the vine. sometimes slow-going when cables are tangled or broken. some pruning. i get pretty solid allergies out there, pollen is in the air. i rubbed my right eye this afternoon, not even that much, but its been REALLY swollen since. dammit.
2/ errands. i don't spend toooo much time doing this, but Bernard, the father of this wine-making family, likes to take me with him when he goes on errands - mayor's to renew his I.D., to storage to organize palettes, to other vineyards nearby, this and that. i like talking to Bernard, we get along really well.
3/ bottling! one good activity that i've gotten to do a few times is filling up boxed wine. machine hooked up to big vat pumps a precise (kinda) amount of wine into the bag i hook up, then i get the air out and plug the little spigot in, the put it in the box and close it up. i feel pretty cool doing this. the main bottling event we have is the once-a-year Mis-en-bouteille that we did last friday. they bring in a semi truck full of machinery, and they pump wine into it, and it fills up bottles and labels and corks and everything, and then we put the bottles into boxes and move boxes onto palettes and wrap the palettes in plastic and storing them (i was working on those last 3). we worked pretty hard at this most of the day, it was pretty fun. i took pictures with Bernard's camera, i'll get them out eventually.
4/ lunch. lunch rocks. i get to eat with Bernard and his wife and 4 kids. pretty cool because all the vegetables come from the ground within a few hundred meters of the house, and because there's always wine. and very often family friends there, who all seem to get pretty excited about me, which i think is because i'm american and polite.
anyway, thats what i've been up to. i'm taking a long weekend starting thursday (don't worry, its a french national holiday anyway) and going to Valras again with Alex and Nico, my french besties. 4 days on the beach shouldn't hurt :-)
much love, i'm going to bed.
i just spent a lovely weekend here in the south of france. saturday i was home chez Bassoul, sunday in Avignon hanging out with my mom! we had a real nice time, pretty much eating our way through town: cafe, spring rolls, sausage, strawberries, another cafe, paella, ice cream. the best part is i get to see my folks again in just a couple weeks ;-)
the vineyard is going real well. the family is not hosting me, which turns out is for the better because i ride my bike to and from and it takes 15-20 minutes, which is eeeeeaaasy. i've been getting there by 9:00 and normally staying till 5:00. at the vineyard, i would put my activities into 4 categories, in order from least to most favorite.
1/ working in the vine. lots of moving around of cables that support the vine. sometimes slow-going when cables are tangled or broken. some pruning. i get pretty solid allergies out there, pollen is in the air. i rubbed my right eye this afternoon, not even that much, but its been REALLY swollen since. dammit.
2/ errands. i don't spend toooo much time doing this, but Bernard, the father of this wine-making family, likes to take me with him when he goes on errands - mayor's to renew his I.D., to storage to organize palettes, to other vineyards nearby, this and that. i like talking to Bernard, we get along really well.
3/ bottling! one good activity that i've gotten to do a few times is filling up boxed wine. machine hooked up to big vat pumps a precise (kinda) amount of wine into the bag i hook up, then i get the air out and plug the little spigot in, the put it in the box and close it up. i feel pretty cool doing this. the main bottling event we have is the once-a-year Mis-en-bouteille that we did last friday. they bring in a semi truck full of machinery, and they pump wine into it, and it fills up bottles and labels and corks and everything, and then we put the bottles into boxes and move boxes onto palettes and wrap the palettes in plastic and storing them (i was working on those last 3). we worked pretty hard at this most of the day, it was pretty fun. i took pictures with Bernard's camera, i'll get them out eventually.
4/ lunch. lunch rocks. i get to eat with Bernard and his wife and 4 kids. pretty cool because all the vegetables come from the ground within a few hundred meters of the house, and because there's always wine. and very often family friends there, who all seem to get pretty excited about me, which i think is because i'm american and polite.
anyway, thats what i've been up to. i'm taking a long weekend starting thursday (don't worry, its a french national holiday anyway) and going to Valras again with Alex and Nico, my french besties. 4 days on the beach shouldn't hurt :-)
much love, i'm going to bed.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
too tired for complete sentences
long day. arrived at vineyard at 8:15 AM by bike. met kids, then worked in vines, repositioning a wire that supports plant. saw lots of spiders. did 2 1/2 hectares, then lunch with farm family. saw property, piped wine to truck, etc then trimmed young plants for couple hours. left on bike at 7:15 PM. hope they decide to pay me, dont know yet.
home for long enough to wish nick good luck on his ultimate frisbee club team tryout, cram a quick dinner and get ready for hockey. played hard, tried to run home, legs said no. see what they'll say tomorrow morning, i bike to work by 9, will be INSIDE a wine vat to clean it WWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE before going-away party of excellent canadian friend, Mr. Reilly Pollard.
ok losing sleep time gotta go
home for long enough to wish nick good luck on his ultimate frisbee club team tryout, cram a quick dinner and get ready for hockey. played hard, tried to run home, legs said no. see what they'll say tomorrow morning, i bike to work by 9, will be INSIDE a wine vat to clean it WWWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE before going-away party of excellent canadian friend, Mr. Reilly Pollard.
ok losing sleep time gotta go
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