Early Spring

Spring has come early to the Lauragais. Despite a brief cold snap, some fundamental threshold in temperature, in the earth's tilt toward the sun, has passed during the last storm. The clouds part and suddenly the morning sun feels warm on your face, the stone walls seem not cold but cool, their freshness something to be preserved against the coming heat of summer. Here and there a cafe or restaurant sets tables outdoors.

Soon the roadsides will be splashed with blood red poppies and the grass in the garden will be speckled with tiny "boutons d'or" so richly yellow as to induce guilt at the very thought of mowing. The lavender will wake, begin to send up shoot, then flower. The plane trees in our garden are suddenly covered with buds that soon will shoot skyward in new wood. The wheat, already rising rapidly these past few weeks will climb and sprout and the breezes will play patterns across the fields like herds of gazelles sprinting and zig-zagging across a plain. Only the brown oaks seem insensitive to the early season; as usual, they will stay brown with last year's leaves until one day we realize they are suddenly fully green again.

Much as we look forward to summer -- cool mornings, hot days, and long, warm evenings dining on the terrace with the sound of conversation drifting across the garden from the table punctuated by the occasional clink of fork on plate -- spring shows the Lauragais at finest. The colors are so much sharper: wheat fields deep green, colza fields full yellow, the sky deep blue with fluffy white clouds rolling by. The hand reaches for the camera at every turn. The wildflowers are easy to shoot, but the pheasants and hares dodging across the roads are much harder, not only moving targets but generally right in front of the car. You get the sense that every growing thing is saying "go, go, go," or "grow, grow grow!" knowing that it's now or never for the year.

Even French workers seem to develop a renewed sense of enthusiasm in spring, suddenly facing the looming deadline of summer holidays. Whatever they did not accomplish over the winter must be done now or not at all and be consigned instead to the work list for fall. Spring is a productive time here for nature and man.

Curiously, the inhabitants of the Lauragais have all this mostly to themselves. Tourist season does not start to pick up until June, and does not begin in earnest until July. The major sites are still uncrowded, restaurant tables still easy to find, and Saturday "changeover" day traffic still non-existent. Hardly a word of English is to be heard at the medieval fair in St. Felix! The Lauragais at its finest, warm afternoons and nights still cool enough to want the comforter, is enjoyed by the residents and only the few, more adventurous travelers.