The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and the Arch de Triomphe are iconic images of Paris. And Paris is the iconic image of France for most Americans.
Way out here in the countryside I always thought I would achieve the status of being a french country girl when I had a brood of chickens in the yard. But that is the romantic American view of a symbol of French country life.
You know you are truly French when you have a cement mixer in your yard.
One of the first things you notice when you are here for more than a month or two is that every one that has a yard has a cement mixer some place in that yard. At first I thought this was the stupidest thing. Why couldn’t all these people just borrow the neighbor’s mixer? That would at least temporarily budge that massive orange eyesore that broods over their property line. Or why not rent one? It’s not like the monstrous thing is a dishwasher that gets fired up every day. If they are so important why we don’t we all have them in the USA-- land of the backyard gizmo?
Well soon enough we had our Very Own Cement Mixer in our yard, too.
Many of you will remember the story about Tom and the wavy floors. That was the first use we had for our Very Own Cement Mixer. I still wasn’t convinced we needed to own one full time. There couldn't possibly be any thing else at the house that we could use it for. Then came two more poured floors, repaired garden walls, studio foundation, patio paving--- you get the picture. Living in a world of stone changes everything for someone that grew up with wooden houses.
I just hope that at the end of our building project we can find a place to hide the cement mixer from view-- both mine and the neighbor’s.
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