Tag: correze

Growth

Yesterday a psychoanalyst from Paris stopped by the Moulin. No, I did not have any sort of crisis requiring intervention by a professional. Rather, she is a board member of several local institutions and is looking for exhibition spaces. She was referred by another local business owner who is a good friend and a swell guy. On her list of wants:

  • a photographer’s dark room
  • a space to host an Aikido initiation ceremony
  • a space for a painting retreat

I showed her our various capacities and explained to her some of our limitations. We can host events like this but our spaces are not quite ‘finished’ and we are only in the process of adding a public restroom to our yoga studio area. She left quite impressed with our building despite its rough state and found it potentially suitable for several things.

We also have a family coming to scout out our garden as a wedding venue. All of this following a brief conversation at the new local coffee joint.

Possibilities swirl, and it’s nice for potential business to come our way without solicitation. But are we ready to host a wedding? Will we have the infrastructure ready? It’s in our business plan to eventually do these sorts of things, but are we allowed to do so under our current entrepreneurial visa, or are we limited to stage one of our plan, which is renting rooms to tourists? We have several things we need to do in order to get ready to do events like this seriously–but we have very limited resources and it will be slow and steady. We were fortunate to find a local contractor who likes to use found objects and recycled materials. He is building our restroom out of old doors and radiators and other stuff we found around the mill!

A final question: How much does one charge for any of these sorts of events? I haven’t the slightest, and we’ve not even really thought about it.

But suddenly we might be in a position where we have to figure it all out. That’s how things grow and happen.

Re-Wilding

Our lawn from its north end–the Vezere River is to the left, and the canal from the days when our building was a mill runs along the right.

We have 1.6 hectares of land along the Vezere River in Correze. That’s almost exactly 4 acres for those of you across the pond. About 2 acres is a relatively flat lawn, the rest is on very steep hillside including a section of forest.

It takes about 2.5 hours to mow the “lawn” here, which is combination of moss, lichen, weeds, dandelions, and about five different types of grass.

Last Thursday I noted how the bees and butterflies were excitedly flitting around the wildflowers in our yard, and decided not to mow for a couple extra days. Then on Sunday my wife invited a half-dozen people over for an impromptu garden BBQ. It’s really hard for me, raised as I was in the USA, to have an “unkempt” lawn when there are guests over, and as tourist rental hosts, we often have guests!

In the USA, of course, the aesthetic expectations for lawn care are quite rigid. There must be a uniform coverage by one specie of grass, cut short and tended regularly. Any flowers or plants other than that specie of grass must be confined to carefully bordered beds or containers. If there is dandelion, or clover, or crabgrass, or anything else in the lawn, it must be pulled up by the roots or bombarded with chemicals to destroy it. I was indoctrinated as a young man into this way of seeing outdoor living space, and it’s hard to escape those expectations.

But those expectations have nearly eradicated many pollinators and bird populations.

We have a three-tiered veg garden dug into one of the steep hills on our property. I’m allowing the spaces around the veg beds and fruit trees to go nuts.

Our guests at the BBQ were unconcerned that the grass was a bit overgrown and that there were wildflowers and dandelions everywhere. In fact, they marveled at the variety of butterflies and bees. They insisted that I should re-wild large parts of the lawn section of our garden. “Just cut a path around several islands of rewilded earth,” one suggested. Another said “We stopped mowing our lawn at our previous house in France and were amazed at what came up–it was quite lovely without any tending at all.”

So when I finally got around to mowing yesterday, I swerved around large clumps of wildflowers. I cut a few flat sections where we keep tables and chairs for guests, and left a patch of lawn appropriate for lounging on blankets or for a game of soccer/volleyball/what have you. I cut a meandering path around several large islands which I left natural. We will see what comes up.

The bees and butterflies were very happy with the decision. And, after having reduced 2.5 hours of mowing to about 35 minutes–so was I!

These steep hillsides on our property are very difficult to cut–but with all the wildflowers perhaps I should let them go feral?

An Adorabe Infestation

We figured along with all the upsides of living in France and running a tourist rental biz that there would inevitably be problems. Our apartments are functional and comfy but they are not fancy, and we expect that at some point there will be plumbing and electrical problems, or leaky roofs, etc.

But our first major problem has been a spring insect infestation. Of course in a rural area one expects lots of bugs, and we’ve had in our apartment: flies, bees, beetles, spiders, and ants. But until this spring there hasn’t been a problem with bugs in the rentals. Since April, one of our rental apartments has been over-run with lady bugs (lady birds to our friends from the UK).

We’ve had several guests who stayed in the gite with the lady bugs running rampant–all of them have been super polite and understanding. I’ve been warning incoming guests that sometimes lady bugs enter the apartment and no one has backed out. One fisherman said they only bothered him when they landed on his tablet screen or his shoulders.

In early April there were HUNDREDS of lady bugs on the ceiling. It happened in our apartment as well. I really don’t mind–I sweep them up into a dustpan and release them outside whenever I see them. But my wife is the only human being in history who is terrified of ladybugs. She can’t abide them, and refuses to touch them, and tries to capture them with long-handled spoons, which is hilarious to watch. Whenever she sees one she becomes ferociously angry, despite having lived in the tropics for four years where insects all up in your grill is simply a fact of life.

So far our guests have been understanding. I told them I am reluctant to use chemicals or to call a professional because we are trying to be eco, and all our clients have been in accord with this, and one woman actually swept them herself and put them in our garden. “J’aime beaucoup les coccinelles!” she said.

I’ve tried several online folk remedies, but nothing works (vinegar, BTW, is always a remedy for everything–it does not, however, cover the pheromone trail which attracts lady bugs back inside). Now that the weather is warmer at night they seem to have stopped coming in–I hope that remains the case, because eventually someone is going to object to lady bugs all over the place on their vacation.

I suppose if one must endure an infestation in France, that having it be swarms of lady bugs is perhaps the best option. After all, at every local market there is some craftsperson selling ceramic lady bugs, hand-painted lady bug tiles, or embroidered lady bug pillows, or lady-bug t-shirts. They are black, red, orange, yellow, they eat aphids, and they are adorable!

The Tao of Treignac

Trying to choose a village in France to set up a small tourist rental biz was a challenging process. There were a lot of things to consider, we had very limited resources, we did hours of online research. All of that culminated in a three-week journey from Paris to Limoges and then all the way over to Marseille and back a couple summers ago.

There are literally hundreds of small towns in France which are charming and where houses are inexpensive. Many of these villages, however, are in decline. The businesses are closed, there are no young people, the tourists might drop by to see the local church or to do a hike, but they don’t stay or spend money. We visited a few dozen towns, some of which were magnificent and had exactly what we were looking for at very low prices.

But too often it was obvious that a town was fading irrevocably. Risking one’s life savings on a town without the potential to make a living was something we had to consider carefully.

We hit Treignac twice on our initial visit. It checked off several boxes: A medieval town with layers of history, a charming natural setting with a river and lakes, forests and mountains, a modern supermarket and hardware store, some small local specialty shops, a nice expat community of folks from the UK, proximity to a few larger cities. And, most importantly, an outdoor sports infrastructure and a developed beach at a lake which attracts tourists from late spring into the fall. Treignac had an energy that was missing in many other similar towns across south central France. And the population had actually increased lately.

One quite pleasant surprise here has been a Tai Chi course. For $40 a year we get three 90-min classes a week, two focused on Tai Chi and one on Qi Gong. Fifteen years ago I took two years of Tai Chi in Baltimore and I’d continued practicing on my own ever since. Having the opportunity to learn a new form and practice with a highly skilled teacher was something I never expected to happen in a village of under 1300 people in rural France.

Our instructor is nearly 70 but looks and moves like a man in his early 40s. He studied with a master from China and has a certification from the French government as an instructor. He is a patient, funny, and serious practitioner and instructor and gives detailed personal feedback. I’ve been doing Tai Chi and mindfulness for a long time and he has broken my bad habits down and rebuilt my practice in just a few months.

I hope to learn the full Yang style form with Alain. So far we have completed and are fine-tuning part I, ‘The Earth.’ Next up is Part II, ‘Man.’

It’s been a huge adjustment going from 20 years teaching and having either a small yard or no yard to having a massive garden on multiple levels to maintain. Often the work is intense and as an oldie I get stiff and sore. Tai Chi and Qi Gong have been a huge help in keeping these old bones limber, and as I reconnect to the natural world a bit of Taoist philosophy and attentiveness to my body and its connection to the universe will continue to ease my aches and pains.

Jobless

It’s been a bit more than 10 months since we arrived in France. We quit our jobs and used 85% of our savings to buy an old mill in a small village in the Correze. We are “jobless,” in the sense that we’ve dropped out of the system which requires you to show up at a place of employment and subject yourself to the whims of an employer for huge swaths of your life.

But we are hardly “not working.” Today, for example, I weed whacked for two hours, I cut down scrub brush and overgrown ivy and dead trees for two hours, I prepared two rental apartments for overnight guests and greeted them and toured them around (in French). My wife and I carted barrows full of gravel down from the street level at our property to the garden where we intend to set up a glamping tent.

Tomorrow we will have to clean the apartments and do laundry and prep them for the next guests. We don’t make anywhere near the money we used to make when we had salaries–but we make enough. We own our property free and clear. We have solar panels. We have a basic and simple life, and I’m starting a vegetable garden. The goal is to have a business sufficient to live a simple and comfortable life without all the rat race BS we faced for decades in the USA. And 10 months in, we are doing so.

Whatever your dream is–whatever it is that you wish you could do, or hope to do someday–do it NOW. Stop buying into the culture that you must rent yourself to a corporation in order to be successful and happy. Get out of that mindset. It’s not easy. The visa renewal process and French taxes are driving me crazy! But–you can live by a river in an old mill in France (or wherever you want) for a fraction of the price of a condo in DC or NY or Vegas. Do it now!

We have two families of four staying over tonight. They had luck with the weather and spent their first few hours here in the garden exploring. They told me how cool our place was and they took many photos of our building and the river, and their kids ran around kicking a soccer ball and having a blast. That is all I need. I don’t need a big salary and retirement. I don’t need 65 hour work weeks and stress.