Thursday, December 22, 2016

2016 Decembre

2016 December

It is almost Christmas! I decided to try to write my Blog and send it our before the two big holidays.
Wishing you all Bonne Fête, Bonne Année and Bonne Santé

For Christmas we will go to Messanges, as we have on previous years.

It was warm here up to Thanksgiving. After that the weather turned cold. It has gone below freezing! at night.

We have had a lot of fog and followed by a day of beautiful frost.


Went out for a couple of frosty photos. Could not resist, but froze my toes since I wore regular shoes. Wanted to stay longer for more photos, but feet cold were cold, fingers were cold and it started to rain/sleet! It is only over the tracks, maybe 1km by car, but it was time to return home and sit in front of the fire.

Played with this photo in photoshop!! More details
 Original below.

Same as above- softer version

Frosty trees
Finally turned the heat on (dec 18th)!! Been heating the house with the wood stove, and it really does warm the house. But morning showers were a little chilly since the house had not warmed up yet. So turned on a few of the electric heaters. It has been about 17 Celsius in the house at 6am.

Went for a couple of walks with MT, one this first part of the month and one mid month. As I said lots of fog here, however in the Haute-Côte, they had sun on several of the days while here in the valley of the Saone, we were socked in!
So went up to the Haute-Côte and saw blue sky!
Took a photo to look at when it is foggy here!
There was still haze, and as the sun set, fog started to move in again in the low areas.

Some haze on the far hill

Arcenant in the late afternoon, fog returning


Same photo, HDR. Background more prominent, but lost the
rich color that the setting sun gave the vines.
 I think I prefer the top one
I have been playing with my camera lately, as you can tell by my comments and exploring options in Photoshop. Also bought an old macro lens. The lens creates amazing backgrounds or bokehs. These old macros need a lot of light and therefore have not played with it a lot since we have had cloudy days. But you will see more in the future. I bought the lens via Ebay for a cheap price. It is a helios M42 macro. I had to get an adapter for my camera. The first photo above of the berries was my first try. The same day I took a couple of other photos. Just some branches with frost.


My history association had a visit scheduled for the first Saturday of the month to the Archeology museum in Dijon. It is in an old building of the church, former dormitory and scriptorium for the monks. I found it to be an very interesting museum, and some wonderful old artifacts, many from around here.
A pan from the Gauls. There is writing (gaul) on the handle.
 Found locally

Old scriptorium -windows are now blocked, so dark . It is the
basement.

This was the dormitory. This end is empty, behind me
are some interesting old statues and ruins
At the beginning of the month, the village Fixin had "portes ouvert" (doors open) at certain vignerons and also included art expositions around the village. I went to see the photos of a friend in photo club.
The salle de fêtes in Fixin is at the top of the village next to a park. So after looking at the photos, I climbed a little further up to look at the statue of Napoléon. M. Noisot from Fixin was a general under Napoléon, and had this statue commissioned for his park. The sculptor is François Rude.


Napoléon in repose...note below

explanation of the sculpture
He also had a small museum built at the top, in hommage de Napoléon.

And then to round off the visit, I took a photo of the church, and then entered the Le Manoir de La Perrière. This was built in the 12th century, owned by the monks of Citeaux and was a manoir and vineyard. Today it is still a a manor used for making wine. And it is good wine, Clos de Perriere.
The doors were open in the cave, so down I went with my camera at my side.
Old manor house
Barrels in this part of the cave



Tasting area on this section with old bottles
And in the next room a very old wine press. This is the type
that it took many men to turn the press,see below

Illustration from LaRousse 1992
Then before I left the place on top of the village, I quickly took a photo of Fixin, and the church. Note the church tower with the colored tiles, very burgundian.
Church of Fixin (for your info, the burgundian pronounciation
of the village is FEE-SAN
As plans start to mount for the coming year, I have lots to do. With the Assoc I need to continue to take photos of the villages. We want to make more books for our archives.
Then we have thought about having children in the club, ages 10-16 years. Give them a start on taking interest in what is around them. I will work with the group from the Reserve Natural for a program of nature and photos. Fanny has planned a program around pollination, introducing insects and plants. Hope it works.
Also with the Tour de France coming right through our city, there will be some work to get Gevrey ready for the grand day.

Right now I am working on photos for the exposition in May. Photos are due by Feb 16th. This year the theme is LINES, CURVES. We can only present two photos. I am looking at what I have and still looking around me for lines and/or curves. Here are three that I have already.
Saint Malo

Biarritz

Marseille
Keith, a little less riding his bike with all the fog. He has been very busy in the garage on a couple of woodworking projects, I think a mirror frame and some shelves.


Wander off the subjects of nature, wine and museums and into politics. The elections for president here in France will be end of April and May of this next year, 2017.
This year it was decided to have primaries similar to the USA. The first was in November. It was for parties to the right (here there are several parties in the run, not just two). Parties were not obligated to participate. So the conservatives held their election on the 27th of November. Fillon was the winner and Sarkozy was out. That changed some of what people expected. Some thought Sarkozy would be in. But there was not a huge turnout either. Again, this is the first time it has been tried.

Now it will be the left side of politics. Again several have declined to run, including two names, Meléchon and Macron  It will be interesting to see if Valls wins? Maybe, maybe not? Holland, current president has declined to run for a second term as president.

Here for elections, there are two consecutive votes. The first week eliminates many runners, usually two are left to run in the final vote. But anyone above a certain percentage runs in the final, so it could be three. The next week is the second vote.
 We have an interesting couple of months ahead. Note that here there are no TV ads ( each canidate gets equal time on the news), and no telephone solicitation for votes! There will be information on each candidate, and flyers of course.


Recipe of the Month

Broccoli and Cranberries

I found a recipe for broccoli and cranberries on the internet. I can never leave anything alone though, so I added the ginger (certainly optional), and the shallots. The recipe also fried the broccoli, I thought to steam slightly and then add to warm it up (I steamed it ahead of time). Also lighter steamed than fried. So this is my version, and it disappeared. One could toss on a few almond slivers too.

This makes a pretty holiday side dish with the red and green.


INGREDIENTS
  • 2 teaspoons olive oil
  • 1 or 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 4 cups broccoli florets ( cut into small florets)-lightly steamed and drained
  • 1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries (or more)
  • 2 shallots (I caramelized one-not necessary, but added crunch) -photo below
  • 2 tsp ginger minced
  • Shallots
  • Salt and ground black pepper





PREPARATION
  1. Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.
  2. Saute shallots
  3. Add garlic, and ginger  and saute 1 -2 minute.
  4. Add broccoli and cranberries and saute 3 minutes, until it is warmed and mixed well. Season, to taste, with salt and black pepper.

Suggestion: Warm the serving bowl so the mixture stays warmer longer