France Day 4

Sunday, October 2, 2011

We woke this Sunday morning to the sounds of bells and bleating. All the churches in the area, and there are a lot of them, were ringing their bells. And it was a beautiful sound. But it must annoy the sheep a little bit, or they were trying to sing hymns, as they were quite vocal as well. Although I am not complaining, really. It was a nice sound. And it was basically 10:30 so no room to complain on this end. We haven't gotten anywhere before noon. And the nice thing is, that is okay by both of us. We are still seeing the things we want to, and enjoying just being in the french countryside.

We had a poulet rescue today! Monsieur, le chien est mange la poulet! (Sir, the dog is eating the chicken.) Or at least trying to. (And I am sure my French is far from accurate.) Although at first it looked like they were 'playing' at least from the dog's perspective. I don't think the chicken liked any of it. And then the chicken started getting really distressed. And bless my mother, she held the dog while I tried to rescue the chicken. My mother does not like dogs, or really any animals actually. So the fact that she aided my activities was a big step. Yay mom. And the poule is now down the hill with the sheep, recooping. Ha ha ha.

(Editorial aside: My mom talks to herself. A lot. :-) )

Our first stop today was Les Jardins des Papillons, otherwise known as the butterfly garden. Wow. Can I just say breathtaking. It was quite warm for the comfort of the butterflies and everyone moved pretty slowly. Which added to the ambiance. The foliage and flowers were abundant and there were butterflies EVERYWHERE! (Quite a few landed on my mom.)

Gorgeous butterflies. Of every color and size. Just beautiful. We stayed about 2 1/2 hours. I took over 100 photos, some of them actually pretty good. I do have to admit that I had a little camera envy. There were some impressive set ups there. One French couple each had some honking digital SLRs. Did I say each? Yep. We ended up near each other and when one of us would find a hidden one, or a particularly beautiful one, we would pantomime to the other to make sure they got the shot as well. It was really very nice.

There was a quite elusive blue variety. (Yes, I got the shot.) They flew close to the ground and often landed on the ground. But once they landed they would fold up their wings. The underside was still beautiful, shades of brown with quite a few rounds present. But you could only see a slip of the almost metallic blue wing fronts. As we finally started to leave, in the gift shop actually, the genetleman came up to me with a big smile and showed me that he had gotten a great shot of the blue wings. I smiled back and showed him a shot I had from my perspective, looking down the right side of my body with one of the blue bodies attached to my shirt. Yep, one landed on me. So cool.

Right next door to the butterfly garden is the stork park. Yep, the stork park. I guess this park was started to help presereve the stork population. They keep the babies in the infirmary or nursery for three years and they loose their migratory instinct. So they hang out around here. Not only in the stork park, but on buildings all over town.

They also have a spectaculare, or show, that features an odd assortment of critters. There is a big round pool with glass side walls and everyone sits around that. From the little podium the announcer relates various facts about the featured critters. All in French of course. Luckily they had a written summary in English. They first brought out a cormorant and then threw fish in the pool and you get to see him catch and eat them. Then a few eels. Oh and a few fish right after the eel so the eel will jump out of his mouth and he gets to chase him again. Good fun. Then an otter as well as some thing that people always confuse as an otter. But otters are carnivores and this other thing is an herbivore. We then had four penguins come out to show how fast they were under water and how they catch and eat fish. And the grand finale was a sea lion. Yep, more fish caching and eating. Pretty entertaining all the way around. Although it does make me realize how lucky we are to be so close to the worlds best zoo and Sea World.

After that a few minutes exploring Hunniwhr, driving up and down tiny, tiny cobblestone lanes, with gorgeous houses right at the street line. Its one of those places where it technically is a two way street, but only one car can get through at a time. Everyone is very nice. And drives tiny cars!