The pike grew even larger and, though we haven't seen this happen while we were watching, we believe that the very low survival rate of the ducklings this year may be attributed to some hungry pike. When I say 'very low survival rate' I really mean 'zero.' We laced the pond with three pike, a male and two females (I was assured it was a male and two females ... though, how can you tell ...?). Over the past several months, we have caught small perch (my first clue that we had perch survivors) and small carp. But we never caught a small pike (is that a pikeling??). Until I caught the large pike, I didn't know we had any that large. It may be that all three were male pike and that's why we have no smaller pike swimming around. If that's the case, they must be very lonely ... So when I caught a very nice pike in June, I wondered how many more were lurking under the reeds. I still don't have a clue.

The Tour de France came rolling through our neighborhood this summer, as well. I had never seen a bicycle race like this up close and the effect was astounding. The day was blustery and cloudy. In fact, the wind was coming up from the south and the Tour de France was bicycling right into it, leaving Le Mans in the mid-morning and heading to Chateauroux, arriving around 3PM after biking 218 kilometers! Biking into the wind, the Tour de France averaged around 43 kph. To put that into perspective, the only time I can achieve 43 kph is when I'm going downhill in my highest gear with the wind behind me! Amazing.

We waited for about an hour for the group to arrive. The four riders in front passed us, followed by cars and a helicopter that hovered just above the ground in a farmer's field across the street from us, then the peloton arrived. Just before, I turned on my camera to movie mode and made a 90-second film as the main group passed us. In the audio, you can see the local residents lining the street; you can hear the wind and you can hear a bank of air horns honking every time a car, motorcycle or a bicyclist passes by. After an hour of this interminable honking, I was ready to strangle the guy! What an annoying sound!

We had cool weather and some rain during the summer, cool and rainy enough, in fact, to cause the ceps (or porcini) to grow. While biking one day by herself, Marie-Louise came across several areas with wild mushrooms. When we returned together to search, one area, a public walking path through a local forest, yielded about five pounds of cep de Bordeaux, perhaps the most delicious of wild mushrooms.

One day, towards the end of Summer, a host of three hot air balloons drifted over Le Cormier - one directly over the house, itself. We shouted hellos back and forth and then, two of the balloons chose the field right outside our front entry drive, to land. All the chase cars, including some friends of the voyagers in the balloon's basket, showed up and totally blocked the small road that passes Le Cormier. What fun! Over the course of an hour, they deflated the balloons, rolled them up, mounted the baskets and balloons in the chase car trailers, served Champagne to all those who flew and rolled away. Whew!

As summer came to a close the apples and peaches ripened. The apples were good this year - not as plentiful as last year, but a good crop, nevertheless. The peaches, however! Wow, were they happy. It wasn't until this year that I understood the name of this peach as a 'vine' peach (peche de vigne in French). The peaches looked like clusters of grapes on the vine. We had a temendous crop and simply could not use them all. We dried quite a few and put some up as peach halves in light syrup, gave some away and, for the rest, they were left for the birds and other fauna living all around Le Cormier