Perch and pups

The wall of the auberge restaurant had a trompe d’oeil of two black fuzzy dogs sitting under a window. On the right side a grey tiger cat stared down at the canines.

My writer friend and I ordered exactly the same thing. The salad greens, the first of the season from a nearby field were crisp and tasted of spring freshness. The filet des perches was, of course, from the lake.

As usual we talked about everything from personal to political and back again.

After finishing she showed me a near by nature reserve where we could walk in the air smelling of fresh earth and new grass. On this fine spring day we walked by the pond with ducks swimming. She identified some of the other birds. Wildflowers were everywhere. We stopped to sit on a bench, the trunk of a tree where one quarter had been carved out to make a seat. An elderly man, his French bulldog on a leash, walked by. The animal snuffled at us and he proudly told us of all her good qualities.

Under the blue sky with the snow covered Jura to one side, and the snow covered Alps to the other we continued into the woods. My friend explained there are still lots of wild animals, fox, deer, hares and boars. “Don’t run if you see one, just stare it down,” she said.

She had read an article that said because so many animals are protected in Switzerland, they find animals are moving in from France with no such laws. We pondered on how they knew on one side of the border they were safe from human predators. We wondered how they even knew where the borders were, although it was fun to imagine them strolling by the border guards and being asked if they had any merchandise to declare. We were sure they would have said no.