Home, Home on the Grange

Today's Wonders of the World are...French Barns!
Remember when I did my post on barns? (See HERE if you want to relive the moment.) Well, my dream life has been going wacko lately and French barns keep popping up, so I'm going with it.

Besides, they certainly deserve to be called Wonders. See?

Mmm. Can't you just smell the garlic?

The French word for barn is la grange. Get it? Home, home on the grange?

Anyway, I took that garlic photo my very own self. Or maybe Todd did it. I can't remember. We found that barn full of garlic on one of our weekend hikes. Have I told you about our hikes? They were heavenly. They gave us a chance to get out in nature, see beautiful French villages, and tire out our three active children, all at the same time!

This is Ben on one of our walks. He is listening to a grasshopper he just caught. Click on the photo for a better view. You can see the beautiful Auvergne countryside, complete with vineyard, French barns, and the far away puys (extinct volcanoes.)
Oh. I just clicked on it and now I feel the homesickness flowing in. Shoot.

It was like strolling through a painting, as you can see. Those hikes were called ballades, public planned hikes through private and public land--through farmers' fields, or winding village streets, or who knows where. We'd hike just about every weekend, and on Sunday afternoons after lunch we'd see plenty of others hiking, sometimes grandmas in heels and skirts--the whole extended family. So fun.

And afterwards, there was much peace and quiet.


But I digress.
Back to barns.


Here's one from a field trip with my son's maternelle class to the farm.
That's a mighty big pig.

Here's another. That's Sam in the green shirt. You can see how happy he is in that barn. That's because they're about to cut loose and start to throw hay on each other--I mean feed it to the animals.


And here's a picture of the dairy barn. I wrote about this trip to the farm in French By Heart, and how the farmer let the kids drink warm milk right out of an old bucket. I wish I had taken a picture of Sam with the foam all over his mouth.

Ooh, have I got a French farm video for you. And it's all in rap. And it has a cow dressed up in a hat. What more do you want? It's amazing.

But first, take a look at a few more sights from our ballades. There may be a barn in there. Or
not.


Have a Wonder-ful Wednesday!
Love, Becky