biodiversity

By LoJardinier

Firestarters

Bundles of vine prunings M and I collected today to start our barbecues - yes, even in the winter - but since this is the season for pruning, we have to get our year's supply in. As befits the daughter of a vinegrower, M gathered four bundles while I did two.
We translated a memoir about this activity in our Occitan class recently. There's a huge and very precise vocabulary for this important activity: for example, on the vine the sticks are called brocas, and as soon as they're cut they become vises. The vine stems are socas, unless they're twisted when they're soquilhos. The bundles in general are faisses, the tidiest ones are gavèls, and the short ones used to be given to the baker: they're called bofanèlas. The short piece of four paragraphs stimulated so many memories that we talked about it for an hour and a half.

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