Gardening, History and a Joke

Gardening and History
The weather has been getting better and better. For the last few days I've been playing boules in temperatures in the low to middle 20s. My car was recording 29 degrees this morning but it's usually optimistic by a few degrees. The days have been spent gardening. I've pinched a couple of inches off the footpath at the back of the house to plant a row of irises given to me by friends Steve and Jo, who have been splitting and replanting theirs. They won't do much this year but should look good next. Have also dug two more holes in the road in front of the house and planted a climbing rose (Iceberg) up against a lime tree on one side and a clematis (Jackmanii) to climb up the honeysuckle on my side. Scraping the paint off the beams in my bedroom will have to wait.

As an alternative to Sudoku over breakfast, I have been reading a history of Pierrelongue, a village 3 km from here along the road to Buis,. It seems there's a still unresolved dispute between Pierrelongue and Mollans over grazing and timber-gathering rights on Mt Bluye, the large hill (3000ft) which spans the two villages. Nothing remarkable in that except that the legal process started in the mid-18th century. There's not a lot that grazes on Mt Bluye now, except a few wild boar, so maybe that's why the case is still unresolved; or maybe everybody just got too tired or forgot what the problem was. Mt Bluye is also the source of many of the springs that bring water to the two villages, which might be more of a problem (viz. Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources) except that there seems to be plenty of water for both. Pierrelongue didn't get its own fountain (i.e. source of fresh water) until as late as 1898. (By contrast, there are eleven fountains in Mollans, dating from ~1770). Before that the villagers of Pierrelongue had to cross the river on a large plank, which occasionally got chopped up for firewood when the weather got cold. Or they could use the river water but the people of Buis had a song that ran along the lines of “we piss in the river and the Pierrelongais drink our piss”. Local villages pissing on one another, or doing something rather more violent, seems to have been all the rage in the 14th and 15th centuries but is a sport that has fortunately died out.

Joke
Here's another of René's stories, which he tells in an Alsatian accent that I could never reproduce. A local yokel introduced himself to a new neighbour and enquired what he did for a job, as he clearly wasn't a farm worker. The newcomer replied that he was a professor of deductive logic at the nearby Strasbourg university. After thinking for a few moments, the yokel asked: “Er....what exactly is that?”.
The professor replied: “ Well, let me give you an example. For instance, I see that you have a kennel in your garden, so I deduce from that you probably have a dog”.
“Yes”, says the yokel.
“I notice also,” says the professor, “that there are toys in your garden and I deduce from that that you have children”.
“Yes”, says the yokel, increasingly impressed.
“Since you have children,” continues the professor, “I conclude that you probably have a wife and that you are heterosexual”.
“Yes again”, says the yokel, now extremely impressed.
A few days later the yokel yokel meets another (yokel) neighbour and tells him about this brilliant professor who has moved into the village. The conversation proceeds as follows.
Yokel 2: “What is this new guy a professor of”?
Yokel 1: “Deductive logic”
Yokel 2; “What exactly is that”?
Yokel 1 (puffing out his chest): “Well, let me give you an example. Have you got a dog kennel in your garden”?
Yokel 2: “No”
Yokel 1: “Homosexual!”