Copulating Snails at our own Kitchen Door!!!

So recently I've been doing some research on snails and slugs. Why, you ask? Well, because they are super friggin' interesting, that's why! I've been finding these green jelly sacks all over the flower garden and was thinking maybe it was a snail egg sack. I'm still not sure on that one b/c I haven't been able to find any info on the green sacks online, but in the meantime I've learned a bit about snails copulation techniques (some people might call it snail sex...and yes, it's a process that happens at a snail's pace for sure.) It turns out that snails and slugs are hermapherdites. They just need to mate with another snail in order to fertalize eachother's eggs with the other's stuff (I'm not exactly sure if you still call it sperm when they are snails...I'm not a scientist, just a snail nerd). So these long white things come out of the sides of their heads and insert into the other snail's head. I came upon these snails when they were alreaady connected, but even still the process lasted over an hour...no quickies for snails! Here are some more pictures of them too. Patricia (a friend of ours) told us about a snail farm that's not too far from us...I had no idea! So now my new mission is to visit this farm and learn all I can about snails. Why? Because snails are cool!

Overgrown Jungle

With all the rain we've been having lately, the garden has been left to it's own devices somewhat. This is what happens when you don't check on your garden everyday....

Garden July 2011

This year our garden has grown (both vegetation-wise and size-wise). Back in February Cam and our farmer neighbor (Christian) got motivated to enlarge our garden. Now, when I say "enlarge", I mean enlarge Cam-style. This means there was no moderation in the enlargement process. We went from having a big garden to having an enormous garden! After that Cam went ahead and planted about 200 potato plants right away. Following the potatoes were a TON of onions (red, white, yellow), shallots, garlic. Little by little as the months wore on, the plants we sowed were transfered from our living room to the garden.

Included here are some recent photos of our garden. As a sidenote, the weather here has been rainy and cool for the past month or so...a perfect environment for weeds to prosper, which they have! As fast as we can pick them, they grow. We tried an experiment with the onions, just let the weeds take over...maybe their growing power would transfer to the onions through osmosis or something. Well, the result of the plan was: weeds don't help your garden after all. As a consequence of our anti-weeding spell, Cam and I basically spent an entire 3 days hand-weeding very sharp and thorny weeds from the onions. Gardening gloves are no match for the ferocious weeds at Le Taux!

Here's a pic of some of our "leftover" tomato plants on the left and our eggplants on the right. To the far left is the green house shack we are currently building for the pepper plants, more to see on this later.
This is an artichoke that's way past ready to eat. Quite beautiful...
Pumpkin plants growing along nicely.Our cheasnut pumpkin patch, which I'm super psyched about. Can't wait to see what it tastes like!Ruby, the delicious rhubarb. Bettey and Diane contributed this little beauty to the garden this Spring!
Some cabbage and green beans (keep ignoring the weeds, they are only a figment of your imagination...)

Due to the cool temps, the tomato plants have been taking a really long time to ripen. We have a bunch of green tomatoes, but just a few that have changed so far.

The pepper greenhouse that's still being built. Tomato plants on the left and right of the pepper house.

A red pepper in the pepper house!

Hmmm, can you guess what this is? It's a medly of beans, cabbage, flowers, weeds, seeding spinach and lettuce. Somehow we have random flowers that have popped up all over the garden. It's kind of pretty.

Some of our beets, got lots of those too...


This is where I sit when my baby belly gets to heavy for me to continue gardening. I take a break and look out over Cam working in the garden. I'm not the best gardener...but I'm a great encourager! This bench and table were made possible through the efforts of Cam and Ben-jammin'. Once a dead tree threatening to fall on those below, now a pleasant garden attraction inviting butts from above.



Some basil in the little green house. We have lots of basil all over the garden also.

With the shallots and onions we started braiding them...

But then we realized we have enough onions to feed an army, so we had to get more creative. So we spent an entire afternoon creating a net to hang the onions so they could dry. Now I know how to build a net if I'm ever lost in the wild with rope and I need to make a net (a useful skill I'm told...) These are the onions in the net in the woodshed by the house.

A close up of the onions in the beautiful net...

Lion enjoying gardening time. Our cats have never been so happy, this is cat paradise!

Stam & Ceph's Newest Adventure

So, looking at our last blog entry I see it has been almost an ENTIRE YEAR since we wrote! Somehow time has passed quickly in the slow moving region of Ariège. A lot has happened in our lives since this time last year, so here we go...

I (Steph) am still working in the towns of Muret and St. Gaudens (France), teaching adults English. It's an enjoyable profession. I have had the opportunity to meet many quality people that are excited about learning, which is a refreshing break from teaching Public Speaking where I had to convince my students that learning was important! ;) I recently went to Helsinki, Finland for a work conference/project with the European Union. It was an incredible opportunity to be a part of the progressive development of intercultural communication within the EU. The project consisted of creating a resource website in which teachers and trainers could find teaching tools to further intercultural communication training in the classroom. Exactly my kind of project. :)

Cam's work life has changed quite a bit since last year. He is now an official computer programmer! He's been super busy working away on several projects, and amazing me with his incredible knack for learning anything he sets his mind to! He's having a ball, and it's really been fun to see his progression in his new career path.

Here's a few pics of Helsinki...

The veggie garden is back, bigger than ever, for the summer! Cam decided to enlarge are already very large garden to accomodate for...us two. Whatever the reasoning, we have a VERY big veggie garden this summer. We planted approximately 200 potato plants, a plethora of tomatoes, beets, carrots, spinach, onions, garlic, shallots, cabbage, peppers, pumpkins, cucumbers, artichokes, rhubarb (thanks to Bettye and Diane), rasberries, strawberries, blueberries, zucchini and a couple types of lettuce. Whew! We should be set for a summer filled of weeding and eating delights!

Garden pics:


As you can probably tell from this last photo...my physique has changed quite a bit since last year too. Hmmm, what's the news...

We're having a baby! Cam and I are expecting a little baby (girl) around October 2nd. Preparing for parenthood has been an adventure in and of itself, we can only imagine what the real deal will be like. We are super excited about this new adventure, it makes moving to France seem like nothing. :) So far a challenge has been figuring out how to work our new (used) super stroller that transforms into 3 different things. Talk about confusing. But we've also been trying to enjoy the down time we have by climbing, traveling just a bit, and playing with our super funny kitties. They're going to be in for a big shock when the little one joins the family! :)

More Pregger Photos:
To finish off this blog post, I'm posting a picture of our last construction project. After having finally finished the hardwood floors in the house (great job Camicito), our next project was building a systems board (wooden climbing wall) in the garage. It's a very nice addition to the garage that Cam is super psyched on. I can't use it during pregnancy, but I'm all about it when the little one arrives. She'll have something to train on too! :)

An Update....Finally!

Well folks,

I apologize for not posting stuff recently.  We've had a few visitors over the last month and we took advantage of it to do lots of really fun stuff.  Without a doubt, most American vacations are too short and Ariège is too vast to explore in a matter or weeks (or days in Jenn's case).

Here are some highlights.

The production of the garden is finally starting to slow down.  We had a massive overflow of tomatoes at the end, including our largest one of the season, which weighed in at 1.1 kg (2.43lbs).  It was enormous!  In fact, Monique made an entire tomato salad for four people out of it alone. :)  Here's a pic of Che with the blue ribbon tomato.

We were super psyched about the success of the garden.  I don't think I have a particularly green thumb, but we received a ton of expertise and help from Patricia, Ben & Shawna, Elise and a bunch of other folks.  Coupled with the fact that you can stick just about anything in the ground here and it grows, everyone's advice and hard work paid off.  Ben, thanks for "the Tool"... that made a massive difference controlling the weed problem.

It was also wonderful having Cliff, Monique and my mom (Diane) out for a visit.  We got to see lots of cool stuff, including a quick trip to Barcelona.  While I completely lost my ability to speak Spanish, we found some other cool sites and did the usual tour of Las Ramblas (no naked dudes this time though), the Sagrada Familia, Park Güell and most of the metro lines in the city.  Just as a logistical sidenote (hint, hint Steph and Andi), buying a one or two day metro pass for Barcelona is totally the way to get around. It gives you the flexibility to see a ton more in a short period of time and is super convenient compared to walking everywhere or taking expensive taxis.  Also, we found out that the amazing produce market on Las Ramblas is closed on Sundays. :(  That was a bummer to realize.

The Family

Steph getting hit on by a headless man in a really hot suit. 

Catalan graffitti calling for the independence of Catalunya (the state where Barcelona is located) and telling the tourists to go home.  The Catalan independence movement is an interesting subject worthy of a later post.

Mom checking out the amazing architecture at Park Güell.

Between the visits of Diane and Jenn, Steph and I had the opportunity to squeeze in a trip to Provence to check out some of the world reknown climbing areas.  Thanks to Monique, who watched our two obnoxious cats, we were able to take 5 days to see the region with Patricia, a French friend who had never visited the area either.  

I must say, the Provence/Haute Alps area is amazing.  It's beautiful and has tons of climbing, certainly worth the reputation and hype that it has received.  I'll just post one pic for the time being of the Verdon Gorge, which is commonly referred to as the "Grand Canyon" of France.  I'll do a climbing related post later, but there is a ridiculous amount of impeccible limestone in that neck of the woods.  The season for Céüse is coming to an end, but I'm SUPER psyched to go back next year. :)

Other than that, Jenn's trip was great... just too short.  We made peach wine for the first time.  We climbed at a really cool area in Spain called Montgrony.  Steph found a new kitten, and I found a new career path.  Lots of exciting stuff... 

We'd love to hear how you guys are doing.

Ten signs that you're integrating into France

1. You cook chicken and notice that the inside is still raw, then think to yourself... "oh, that looks about right."
2. You are no longer surprised that a doctor's visit only costs an Euro.
3. Sharing lanes with motorcycles becomes routine... they come up behind you and you scooch over so they can ride the line between you and oncoming traffic.
4. You get climbing endurance.
5. You lose all bouldering power.
6. Testing every single type of cheese on a platter isn't necessary...you know which ones you like.
7. You contemplate going on strike when you don't get something you want at school... or if you want to add a couple more days to summer vacation.
8. Eating ultra-processed food and crappy vegetables from the southern hemisphere is no longer an option.
9. You realize that "Accès Interdit" (No Entry/Access Prohibited) signs are optional.
10. Your definition of a meal now includes a minimum of three courses.

More Climbing...(A.K.A. Steph is rockin'!)

We've been a little off the map lately.  Aside from a random assortment of home improvement jobs and other things, we've been doing a fair amount of climbing at a shady cave nearby.  It has been a lot of fun, but we're both trying to figure out how to go from slabby granite to horizontal limestone.  Thus far, it has been a lesson in kneebars and foot cams... and a lot of fun.

Most notably, Steph has made unbelievable progress on an excellent route called Bébé Sabart.  When she first tried the route, she hung through the first two bolts and pretty much stopped there.  Now, after a few days of working on it and getting the knack of all sorts of tricky jessery, she's piecing entire sections together, including the crux.

The route starts with a couple of bolts of cool tufa climbing.  Perfect pinches and a world-class butt scum lead a horizontal roof, where the casual climbing ends and the jessery begins.

A sneaky heel hook in a perfect hole allows her to clip and get ready for the crux.

 The technical crux is moving into the roof feature.  There are a multitude of ways to do it, but Steph has figured out a graceful way that involves a powerful dropknee with her toe jammed into a small hole, before eventually walking her feet in front of her to another foot cam and a powerful gaston move.  I've seen several other climbers try this route and I think she does it more gracefully than most of them, which is cool.

The final walk through move/foot cam of the crux section.  The foot cam is excellent, but hard on the knee since most of her weight is on it for several moves.  When she first tried the route, she couldn't do a single move on the entire crux section and she was super apprehensive about the foot cams.  Now, she can do the entire crux section and has figured out how to effectively move on the steep terrain.

Clipping this bolt is still a work in progress.  The holds aren't great and the foot cam is painful, but I think with another day, she'll figure out a sequence that works for her and be off to the next little section. Both of us spend a bit of time doing a few moves, then making a grab to a draw... All holds are on in our book... even the ones that shine. :)

Aside from all the new climbing techniques that she is learning, Steph is also getting good at all the other shenanigans that go along with hang-dogging sport routes.  Her boinking skills have gone up 5000%... from not being able to pull up on the rope, to using her hips and body to generate the necessary force to get her back up.  Climbing on horizontal terrain is certainly a new experience and I also notice a marked difference in her comfort level.  When she first started climbing the route, she only tried it on toprope, which was a total nightmare because TR + Horizontal Roof = catastrophy.  Although it was intimidating at first, Steph soon realized that it was far better (and much easier) to work the route on lead.  Now, she leads the sections well (still working on the clips occasionally) and doesn't appear to be near as intimidated to fall.  She regularly takes falls and is working up to piecing together the next section of the route which has a bit of a runout.  She is definitely getting much stronger physically, but I think the biggest improvement has been with her mental confidence and capability.  It has been really fun watching her realize a small part of her potential.

Steph working on the next sequence that leads to a double kneebar, no-hands rest just before the final cruxy section and a really bizarre finish that entails crawling into a vertical hole in a horizontal roof.  

In addition to Steph's progress, we've also met a few of the local climbers, including a young guy named Josef.  It has been super fun getting to know him and learn about the region and language.  Josef has been awesome about showing us secret beta, helping us learn all the climbing terminology and teaching us a random assortment of slangy sayings that I unwittingly use inappropriately with frequency.  

He's of the "I have stupid strong fingers" generation and is getting back into shape impressively fast after completely tearing a pulley and having surgery six months ago.  Today, he made a smooth ascent of "La Chica," the line pictured above after finding a couple of key kneebars and completely crushing the crux pinch with his "weak" hand.  I'm frightened to see what will happen after he quits his temporary job scrubbing cheese next week.  College doesn't seem to be on the horizon, but I imagine he will quickly be crossing things off his ticklist when he gets some calluses and climbs more than once a week.  

For the time being, the weather is still hot, so I imagine we'll continue to climb in the cool, shaded grotte for a while.  I'm super psyched to see Steph make more progress on Bébé Sabart.  With some work, I think she could piece it together.  Regardless of whether or not she links the route though, her improvement is incredibly impressive and inspiring.  I can't wait to go back and she her work on it more.