A hodge podge of photos from yesterday in Alsace

Meet Noirdie the goat.



Noirdie (or "blackie," in French) is the goat of my friend Frank, from graduate school, who now lives out in Alsace, a region in eastern France along the border with Switzerland. Frank likes his animals, so his home has become a virtual Noah's Ark of animal goodness. Frank and his wife and two kids have two Golden Retrievers, eight or so cats, four chickens (for the eggs), a goat (who lives with the chickens), a parrot, a parakeet, and a turtle. I think that's everything. The luxury of having a nice house in the country.



Every morning Frank, or the kids, go out to the henhouse and pick some fresh eggs for breakfast. The last two days we've had "oeufs à la coque," which I think is soft-boiled eggs. They were quite good, my first time with super fresh eggs - and look kids, no salmonella!



I'm not an expert on French geography, but the area out here sure looks like farm country.



As I mentioned yesterday, it's also flower country.



And cat country.



It's also, apparently, frog country. On our drive around the neighborhood, Frank explained to me that this pathway through the woods was closed every September because of frogs. You see, they mate in September, and hoards of them gather on this road to either mate, or go mate, or something. Suffice it to say, the road is closed for a good month due to frogs. Seriously.



The other fun thing we came upon, while out running a few errands, was a wedding party off to get married, or off to the reception. The bride was taking the horse drawn carriage, it's not clear where the groom was.




It was a pretty rainy weekend, unfortunately, but yesterday evening the sun finally popped out a bit. The sun is gorgeous here at sunset, reminds me of the sun you see in Paris at this time of year, or the sun you see in the Netherlands (think Rembrandt). This is simply Frank's fruit basket, but I loved the way the sun was hitting it just for a few minutes.



And finally, here's a last shot of Noirdie. (And if you can't get enough of her, here's a short video I shot of her on my iphone.)