June 21

I began the day with my morning meditation of weeding and then Franchesco said we were going to plant pumpkins, corn and various flower species. He had somewhat of an idea of how he wanted to plant them but I mentioned the "Three Sisters" technique of planting squash, corn and beans together in a mound and their symbiotic relationship: thebeans grow up the corn and the squash shades the corn, decreasing weeds and deterring pests because of their pokey leaves. He thought it was pretty cool and gave me free reign over planting them. We also planted shallots and lots of flowers. Then we plotted out the garden on large sheet of paper, the data of which will be put on the computer so he can plan next season's crop rotation.

For snack I foraged some apricots that had fallen from the tree, still warm from the sun : )

It is the Fete de la Musique in France, falling on the 1st day of summer. Bands come and play free shows and people are free to bring their instruments and play in the streets. Apparently when it began 30 years ago it was a really cool thing but the music has become worse and people get more and more drunk every year when they go out. I went with two guys who rent rooms here and we drove down. The town was full of people, young and old. The main band was this punk band for a while, which was really bad. Then we decided to walk around a bit. We heard drummers, a really good group playing American and French rock, which was great. Then the Hush Puppies played. Apparently they are very well known, though I have never heard of them. At 1am we headed home.