21 March, 2022
In the morning I get to stay at home and read (Terry Theise’s »Between the Wines«). At noon Thomas arrives with two tanks he bought nearby (second-hand, of course). It takes a while to get them out of the truck he rented, I can tell you that. In the afternoon we pick up his tractor, a Renault from the late 1960s/early 1970s. It needed to be repaired. And it has been but… not fully yet. Thomas is asked to use it and then see whether it works or not. Okay! Just because we prune for a hour or two – it’s rather late, after 5 p.m., so no one else is around. On our way back to the car I ask Thomas about the tulips we’re noticing in nearby Domaine Huet’s plots. »They’re wild. They’re just there. And we’ve just started planting them ourselves. Don’t try to pick one, they’re protected by law!« In the late evening we check out Thomas’s cellar in which some serious construction work has been going on. Thomas needs some parts of his cellar’s grounds to be even so he can manoeuvre vats, barrels etc.
Tanks Thomas bought – second-hand, as always
Thomas’s tractor
Thomas’s tractor 2
Thomas’s tractor 3
Thomas’s tractor 4
Thomas’s shed – no electricity, no water
Before…
… and after!
Tulips in Domaine Huet’s parcel
A tool to arrange for an even floor – I didn’t understand how it worked, to be honest
Thomas (l) and the man responsible for making the floor even, eventually
Thomas’s cellar’s ceiling in which you can see marks of the kind of manual work that was involved in building (or rather: digging) his caves hundreds of years ago