Animal Behavior

This is a picture of the face of a French boar called a Sanglier:

They say there are wild boars around here.  This one Ed saw on a long march that he was invited to go on by the neighbor.  It was in a little fenced in area next to an out of the way vineyard halfway up the side of a steep hill.  Who was keeping it there, and why?  Anyway, it really oinked and snorfuled a lot.  It was loud and dirty.  But it seemed friendly.

Posing Next to the Sanglier

Switching animals, here are three pictures of Ivy:

First, trying to look alert and intelligent, sitting outside the little grocery store:

Then, how she actually is when she's not out in public:

And what happens when Averil accidentally on purpose lets the semi-stray cat come in the door:

     Off-topic, the French president's supporters found out that we are living in France.  We found a letter from them in the mailbox.  President Sarkozy has made 10 great reforms in the last 5 years and (on the back) it is suggested that we should give some money to his campaign:

It is a little bit unusual to get junk mail in the mailbox so we're not sure how this one slipped through.  One of the things about the French mailbox is that there is a little plaque on the mailbox that translates, "no advertising please" (i.e., no junk mail).  In the U.S., that would be a violation of the constitutional rights of the people (corporations are people) to speak to you in the form of junk mail.  Anyway, the plaque seems to work.  We almost never get junk mail.  Or maybe they don't have that much junk mail here?  Frankly,we're not sure if it's the little plaque or not, but our junk mail is about 99% less than what we get in the U.S.  (Ed likes the French junk mail on the rare occasion when something slips through.  It's good practice for reading French.  Maybe we should take the plaque off?)

     We're about to start a two week school break.  We'll head here for the first week:

 

Then we will go through a tunnel under the mountains.

And end up here for a week: