A Brutal January

Good Morning New Year

There is an old folklore about predicting long term weather. Some believe the first 12 days of January foretell the weather for each month of the year, while others say use the 12 days of Christmas, that is December 25 through January 5. Well, both interpretations missed the spot by a mile this past festive season. Christmas was actually a rather nice winter’s day. Cold, but sunny. And New Year’s Day was similar. But January, which supposedly is represented by either one of those days, depending on your interpretation of the old saying, was and still is anything but nice winter weather. Most of January was brutal. Especially the 5^th, 6^th and 7^th. Thus, are we not going to have any form of summer this year?

[Uhmmm…]

It is 11:06 pm on a Monday night.

It could be any given Monday night in early January. It’s winter. Outside a layer of ice covered by a blanket of 3 inches of snow lay silently in the black night. The 15 mile per hour North wind has been blowing steadily the whole day. But the snow is not your usual soft, fluffy stuff that kids like to pick up and make snowballs from. No one is making snowballs with this snow.  The ice from below, the 15 mile wind and the teeth-shattering cold air have turned the snow into snap crackle and pop when walked on.

Animal watching through the window. Not much else to do.

It is -4 Fahrenheit /-20 Celcius outside according to the Skyscan weather station in my kitchen. And it can only go down from here. It tells me I could also be seeing a quarter moon, but not tonight. A thick wall of low clouds have waltzed in on the rhythm of the howling wind and settled over the gentle rolling hills of the bluegrass. More snow is imminent. Now add the wind-chill factor and suddenly it feels like -22 F / -30 C and the bone-crunching cold turns old bones into acute arthritis pain in joints you didn’t even know you had.

Deer came looking for food

Tonight is going to be Killer. Humans with inadequate heating, exposed animals on farms around here, sickly trees, and tender plants not hardy enough for this “polar vortex”, the latest buzz word in meteorology, that is flexing its muscles way out of its normal orbit. The polar Jetstream has shifted, again, (it happens nearly every winter, in some form or fashion) and brought the North Pole, on a nice day, down south to us. 

[Thanks, but no thanks.]

I was hoping to have the porch done before the end of January, but no such luck

I wrote about it several years ago. But this year the phenomenon is slightly different it seems. It’s pissed off! Most certainly the worst in my 17 years here. If you just have to go from car to house or office to car and being only briefly exposed to it is fine, however, having to go outside and work with water and feed to ensure the chickens survive in the coop it feels more like being on a different planet. Crunching snow under foot, icy winds creeping through every fissure of my coat’s down material and the intense cold and dry air on the exposed parts of my face brings tears to my eyes and freezes ones nose hair after barely a minute or so.

[This is probably how it feels at the North Pole.]
 

 Encapsulated

We have had it all this winter. Well, nearly all. Ice, rain, very strong damaging windstorms, far more snow than usual, and the coldest temperatures in more than 30 years.  The only weather phenomenon still missing is a white-out, a blizzard.

I’ll be glad to see  January’s backside. What will February bring...? It is usually our coldest month in winter so is the worst still coming?

 The pond on January 4, 2014

By January 26 is was totally frozen over and snowed in

[PS: We enjoyed glorious sunshine and a temperature into the high 50’s on the first day of February, just like the 1^st day of January, alas, first, the rain, then the cold, again rain, which turned into ice, and then eventually into snow, returned on the 2^nd day of February.]

 Make it while you have it

It is winter and I am not waiting with abated breath for better days to come. It will come by itself. When nature is ready for spring it will show itself. It has always done so in the past…

I suppose you could say my glass is half full.

 New Year's day evening. A last look at green grass.   

Market Day in Gordes

 

We drove south east on the N7 from Avignon to Cavallion, but after crossing the A7, which runs south to Marseilles, we went east on the Route D’Apt, the D900 to Coustellet. I think it should be called the Perch Village Highway. North of the D900 the villages of L’isle-sur-la-Sorgue, Fontaine-de-Vaucluse, Gordes and Roussillon are easy accessible. Turn south from the D900 and the perched villages of Ménerbes and Bonnieux are not too far. Near Coustellet we turned north on the D15 to Gordes. If it’s Tuesday, it must be market day in Gordes.   

 

Along the way we stopped when I eyed this classical Romanesque-style chapel. Probably from the 12^th or 13^th century.

 

As we continued to climb into the foothills of the Monts de Vaucluse and made another turn in the road, the view opened up. On the right the valley stretched far into the hazy morning sunlight until it backed up against the Luberon Mountains. On the left, through cypresses and native shrubs, perched on a spur, Gordes. At the top, its centuries old castle next to the church, and down the slopes, its narrow alleys and stone houses cascade down like exquisite layers of lace over a flowing satin ballroom wedding gown.

 

The perfect French hilltop village.

I wondered for how many centuries they have held market day in the shadow of the Gordes castle. Typical French country, beret and all.

 

For nearly a thousand years, the castle has been standing sentinel supreme over the village. Thought to be built in the 11^th century by Guillaume d'Agoult, one of the earliest ancestors of the powerful feudal family who ruled large parts of Provence, including Gordes. However, habitation goes back probably to about 6000 BC when flint was mined here. D'Agoult successors strengthened the castle in 1123 to make it a nobile castrum – a noble fortress, and one of the most well-known among the many nearby castles. It was further strengthened through the centuries and then mostly rebuilt between 1525 and 1541, parts in the Renaissance style, by Bertrand Simiane, the Marquis de Simiane, who was then the lord of the manor.

Quintessential Mediterranean - Olive, garlic, chillies...

Cured Meats.

While M continued to meander through the market I explored the outer edges of the market square.

 

That sure is the biggest wine bottle I have ever seen.  

It seemed that door and that entrance were there for ever.

Time to explore the village. Down we went.

It doesn’t really matter which way you go. The important thing is to get yourself lost. And that is exactly what happened. Here and there were natural openings on the side of a street to lookout over the valley; places to adjusts ones perspectives again. But around the next corner the tall stone walls and darker shadows engulfed the narrow uneven cobblestone alleys again.     

 

A feline sentinel high above street level.

 

Another on street level. Totally disinterrested in the tourists.

We eventually found ourselves on an opposite hillside of the village with excellent views of the village itself and the valley below.

 

This house was for sale. It came with a beautifully carved stone cross.

 

 

And this is why the villagers moved up the hill to be under the protection  of the castle. The view. Probably not for the beauty of it, but as a lookout and an early warning system. Warnings against feudal armies and religious zealots during the Wars of Religion in the 16th Century. Theview is not bad either.

 

Totally stoned.

We walked back to where our car was parked on the outskirts of the village and continued our journey through the valley towards Roussillon.