Sometimes, when the weather’s nice and I feel nature calling, I’ll take the RER out of the city, not too far, a half-hour ride west from the center of Paris. Actually, it isn’t nature calling but a friend of mine who lives out there. He’ll pick me up at the station and drive us back to his house, about 15 minutes away. Or I’ll take my bike on the train then cycle from the station.
He has a beautiful backyard, full of all kinds of trees and plants and a vegetable garden and a chicken-n-pigeon coop where he raises birds such as chickens, pheasants, and Texan and Hubbell pigeons.
I like visiting his backyard because I don’t have one of my own.
I see Turkish filberts from my window but no ginkgoes or beeches or pines, as he does.
I see pigeons, but none like this, none I would want to hold.
Then we’ll have lunch, if possible with something from the garden, like the zucchini that’s plentiful right now or those cherries earlier in the month. And perhaps pigeon.
No, just kidding, we didn’t eat one of those beautiful pigeons on Sunday. We ate rabbit.