Tag: rural

Bou learns a lesson

Bou loves to play with our goats…but she has been for the past six months WAY too aggressive and powerful for them. They would try to play with her but inevitably Bou would crash into them and send them flying because despite being a little dog she is a bundle of muscle coming in at almost 30 lbs. And the goats are only 8 months old now—when Bou first started playing with them they were barely 9 weeks old. Typically Bou plays with dogs who are much larger, like our neighbor’s Lab/Mastiff mix or our friend’s bloodhound. When smaller dogs play with her Bou inevitably hammers them with a powerful shoulder shrug or head butt which sends them trembling and whimpering into their owner’s arms.

But our baby goats are growing and the male Cornichon now weighs only one kilo less Bou. As a result Bou recently learned a valuable lesson

Here is the vid:

Of course seeing this after the fact I’m deeply concerned about Bou’s hips and back—Frenchies have terrible problems and often require surgery. But it’s part of owning a Frenchie: she throws herself around like a lunatic every day, jumping off 6-foot high walls, propelling herself into orbit off the back of sofas and landing awkwardly, doing a vertical leap superior to that of Spud Webb and landing on her spine, chasing a ball and crashing into a hardwood bookcase at full speed. I wish that rather than filming Bou getting blasted into the stratosphere and crashing down I’d captured Corni’s victory dance. It was the most adorable thing to see him hopping back and forth and puffing out his chest at having bested his friend and rival for the first time. Now they play more as equals and it’s very cute.

I love how Bou immediately gets up after her chastening and goes after Corni anew–but as soon as he rears up she backs off. Makes me laugh every time.

Down the Vézère

This weekend in Treignac there was a water sports festival. The local power company turned on the taps at the dam upriver from our house and let loose a torrent from Friday to Monday. Last year Treignac hosted the world kayaking championships, and does so regularly–but this year they hosted the championship trials. Our home is on a bend in the river and it was interesting to see how dramatically the water level and mood of the river changed behind our garden.

We signed up for a rafting excursion which started on the north end of town and wound around to the south end. Our total time in the raft was about 45 minutes.

My wife and I have rafted several times in the USA, and once on the border of Panama and Costa Rica. She got a group of friends together to join our team and after the typical safety gear and instruction period we were off.

Our guide was a bit adventurous. There is a small dam 300 meters upstream from our house which has a gentle ramp built in for kayaks and rafts. He told us “We are not going down the slide, we are going over the wall.” Quite exciting to take a 4-foot vertical plunge into churning foam!

The Barrage du Pisciculture at the end of our property–our rafting guide took us down over the wall!

It was lovely seeing our building from the water. The most tranquil part of the river floats around a slow bend which borders our garden and then goes under the Pont de la Brasserie, built in 1840. A friend was stationed at the wall to snap photos of us as we passed. Poor soul–she was originally a team member but fell and broke her arm a few days before the adventure and could not participate! We definitely owe her a bottle of wine for waiting so long at our place.

Photo by Kate Gratton, taken from our garden as we passed Moulin SAGE

I was pleasantly surprised by the course–I thought it would be rather tranquil and had no idea how choppy and full of attitude the water would be. There were a few really rugged spots of more than 100 meters and at least 3 substantial drops of class 3 or more. Fortunately our raft was equipped with foot straps or we would have lost crew members at different points. On one steep drop by a large outcropping we almost tipped over.

Photo by Barb Wigley, taken from her garden near the Vieux Pont, Treignac
Photo by Barb Wigley. “You two look like marauding Vikings in this one,” she wrote.

We got to pass under the medieval Vieux Pont in the center of town, and see the famous post card view of Treignac from a raft. My favorite spot however was seeing the Rocher de Folles from underneath. We’d done the hike to the outcropping previously, and got to see it from a different vantage.

It was quite an experience, and already we are looking forward to doing it again next year. Today is all about recovery after the strenuous workout–and also about cleaning up the gite apartment after a 5-man kayaking team checks out later this morning!

When your gite guests are kayak bros

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.