Monday, September 25. Morning fine, afternoon drippy.
We are still using Le Boat as our floating moored hotel room.
This morning after breakfast we went on a bit of a bike ride to a town about 6 Ks away. This town is also of ancient roots as of course the area around it expanded over the last 600 years.
Nothing spectacular to see really. We next continued along the canal footpath some distance westward, towards the city of Beziers, our destination tomorrow by cab, to pick up the car and explore the city.
Fellette and I stopped for a break as Dave and Alyssa pushed on some more. While stopped I examined a giant machine working the vines, with the permission of the operators.
This unique giant of a machine straddles the single posts and vines and slowly makes its way down the row brushing the individual grapes off their holding stems. Amazing mackinaw. I suppose that smaller vineyards still pick by hand but from what I see the process has been pretty well automated.
The Grape Harvester then transfers it load of grapes into a wagon which I assume is destined for the factory.
Speaking of grapes, I looked up the Great French Wine Blight. About 1860, French farmers began to notice some plants dying in the vineyards. Within 15 Years over 50% of the vineyards in France were affected.
The cause of the blight was determined to be the exchange of grape vines between the USA and Europe, all with good intentions. I am not an expert but I believe there was a difference between European stock and native North American root stock. In France they discovered tiny lice-like insects feeding on the roots. Hence the disease Phylloxera...imported from the USA in the importation process.
Speaking of blights...
The Midi Canal was built, I should say dug and was completed in 1681. They wisely planted Plane trees along the can to shade the canal to stop evaporating and stabilize the banks of the canal.
The trees did well and are magnificent looking specimens, gigantic in size. They are all dying and being cut down at an alarming rate. All are destined for elimination within 10 years and being replace with other varieties. They have a blight.
Those trees earned the Midi Canal its UNESCO World Heritage Site status.
The reason for the blight is as follows. Are you ready for this? In WWII the American Army ammunition boxes, or some of them, were made of sycamore. Some were obviously disease riddled. This diseased wood eventually attacked and killed some Plane trees, and it spreads and spreads.
Another suggestion is that boaters on the canal tied their ropes to the trees, causing bruising and exposure to disease.
Regardless, some 4000 trees a year are destined to be cut down. The cost to cut and replace the trees is estimated at 200 million euros.
And know you know...
Another comment on the blog. It appears that somehow the transmission of my blog gets garbled and the pictures end up first, whereas I place them last, and the captions that I put under the pictures are eliminated. Maybe the French censors?
Some day I should send it without an attempt at correcting all the auto-corrections it has done!
Photo 1 Fellette emerging from our Berth up front.
Photo 2 Dave and Fellette riding along the canal beside the doomed Plane trees.
Photo 3 Grape harvester and operators on their lunch break.
Photo 4 Fellette on her bike break.
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