Critters

You have to click on this photo to get the full effect of a field of donkies. They live not far from us, on the main road to Tertre. We see lots of farms and farmettes with one or two donkies but not usually this many. I have to wonder why one has donkies, and especially why this many.

On another critter subject, 'tis the season for babies. I've already shown you our baby goat neighbors, who are growing and getting fat (but still cute as can be). We've also seen several sets of new lambs along our walking routes. Once the cows come out we'll probably see new calves too. Never a country-loving girl (I much prefer the suburbs and Target), I nevertheless delight in seeing all these new babies arriving around me.

Sarah thinks this means I need a pet. Hmm...going home next year...

Kitchen centerpiece

This is my friteuse, or deep-fat fryer. Note that it's built in. I've been using it since we got here to make french fries (frites), but I've been cheating and buying frozen fries. Last night, though, I made fresh frites, using Belgian potatoes labeled as special for frites.

Frites are a very big deal in Belgium, which is probably where they originated. While there is another story that they were invented in Paris, that's probably just the French being French. (One of my junior year abroad French friends once claimed that turkeys were French.) Interestingly, though, even most of the French credit Belgium with having invented the frite. The french in french fries was probably a reference to the way they're cut into long thin strips, known as frenching. It was originally frenched fries and simplified into french fries, just like iced tea is now ice tea and tossed salad is becoming toss salad and cole slaw is…well cole was always cole slaw.

Armistice Day

I promised this shot a while back. It's our village's memorial to the Great War. It sits on the Grand' Place and is decked out for 11 November. The names of everyone in the village who died in that war are carved into the sides, including the poor guy who died the summer after the armistice. Gustave was a very popular name for boys in the 1890s.

Belgium had it rough during this war (the second war wasn't much better). Not only was a significant portion of the front on Belgian soil, but the Germans were playing by old-school rules: to the victor the spoils. They took everything of value, packing up whole factories--roofs, walls, machinery. But what goes around comes around: Belgium was an exceedingly wealthy country before the war in large measure because it was taking everything of value out of the Congo (Kinshasa).

The flags, left to right, are Wallonia, Belgium, and Saint-Ghislain.