Avoiding being shot in the French Countryside in Autumn

Autumn in France= the sound of gunfire on a Sunday morning

Well it is a weekday so it is sort of safe to leave my house at the moment and look at the autumn colors …hunters won’t shoot me since they are at work.

But I’m not safe from their dogs. One came out of nowhere and jumped on me, which only bothers me because the last time a dog came out of the forest and jumped on me I got a tick.

I was on my walk to the bakery to pick up bread (how is this my life?) and the dog decided to walk with me for practically a half hour before he decided to jump on some mother and children walking nearby. They shot me dirty looks thinking it was my dog.

What in the world are they shooting at?

What are the hunters shooting at? We seriously have nothing to shoot at other than chickens, cows, our cats, our domesticated rabbits, and us.

The French countryside unfortunately is a little lean when it comes to actual wild animals. Well, I guess you could say that Europe in general is a little lean in the wild animal department.

So I asked my housemates. Turns out our neighbors keep hundreds of pheasants and other fowl that they apparently let loose at this time of year and then parade around shooting like madmen.

I never grew up in a hunting family so I really don’t get why anyone would find that fun. Why don’t you just hunt for mushrooms or something? Hell, go shoot some mushrooms off trees…

The rabbits…

Even our evil rabbits have mysteriously reappeared in our courtyard. Our house and barn are connected together by walls so the whole place is a cool sort of stone fortress.

Poopie and Guy de Montparnasse recently discovered the garden on the other side of the barn and have been escaping at every opportunity. Guy is a little older, though, so she seems to have lost interest and spends her time in the shade under the lawn chair. Poopie is a little devil and has wreaked havoc on our cabbage patch. Is it bad that I sort of hope the hunters shoot her?

(Upate: a few days after I wrote this draft Poopie just suddenly and inexplicably died. Now I feel guilty!)

Real life

Today I tutored English via videochat to a Buddhist monk. Well, she is technically a nun but then again I’m not sure if they say nun in the Korean strain of Buddhism. She was referring to herself as a monk but then again that may have been an English mistake.

I felt terrible because at first I thought she was a cancer patient in a hospital because she had a shaved head, was wearing a very loose fitting, light blue sort of robe (that looked exactly like a hospital gown), and was laying in bed in a very sterile looking room.

I also felt terrible because I was hungover and had the lovely experience of comparing my hungover self to this bastion of purity and discipline.

She told me that she “never stops practicing her mind” which was on one hand a reflection of her low level of English but also very profound and, well, Buddhist at the same time.

Autumn things

I have been really keen on celebrating the autumn this year, though. It’s mainly because last year I was in Southern Africa and since the seasons are flipped down there I got an extra dose of springtime.

It’s still really warm, though, which I have been loving. But since the garden doesn’t require as much work these days I have been searching for other reasons to go outside. Thus walking to the bakery.

Some other ways we have been enjoying the French countryside in autumn include:

Foraging for mushrooms. So many mushrooms! We don’t dry them so we literally ate only mushrooms for lunch and dinner for a week. We even stuffed a pumpkin from our garden with mushrooms and bacon and cream and baked it and it was delicious.

Putting cream in everything. Hah no we do that all year long. And butter.

Not eating lettuce. Hello radis noir!

Roasted chestnuts! I found a chestnut tree just next to our house and oh man there’s nothing like the smell of roasted chestnuts!

It has been a happy time spent with friends and personal projects. A nice moment to breathe after the career related craziness last month.

I don’t post so many personal updates or even stories on this blog. I am going to start doing more of that, but I wanted to churn out some posts that are actually helpful for my readers first.  Ha let’s be real I had to churn out lots of list posts because our dear Uncle Google will only send me traffic if my posts are like that.

So stay tuned and happy Autumn to my readers in the Northern Hemisphere!