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When we decided to stay in France for a bit, we looked around for a house to buy. We wanted something to call home for a few years. In the short time we had been in France we found we liked the old Gascon farmhouses better than anything else out here. They follow a setContinueContinue reading “The House at Pig Corner”

Sometime in Fall last year I stepped out of the car and looked around at a farmhouse and its surrounding paddocks. There was a barn with its metal roof partially torn off by a recent storm. There were gentle hills all around. There was a big lake and plenty of forest. And there were cows.ContinueContinue reading “How did I get here?”

After six months of searching and a couple of false starts, we bought a farm. This is one of those times where Jean can’t resist the obvious joke, so I’ve had to put up with ‘Brent bought the farm’ for the last couple of weeks. We haven’t yet paid for it, we do not haveContinueContinue reading “We Found a Farm in France”

As we’ve been farm hunting, I’ve been checking out how people here farm cows for beef. I’ve collected a few of the basics that are common among local farmers.     A cow a hectare is the standard limit In general they have about a mother cow per hectare (about two and a half acres).ContinueContinue reading “How Beef Farms Run in Southwest France”

When we first moved to France we were looking for a nice old farmhouse with a little land. Maybe half a hectare or more of garden and trees with some outbuildings to store junk and for the kids to play in. (Note for fellow Americans: a hectare is two and a half acres, so weContinueContinue reading “How to Kill House Value, number four – Carve up the Lot”

Driving down a back road near my house I saw this place with ‘A VENDRE’ written on the gate. There were a lot of buildings and four hectares of land, so I checked it out. The house had been renovated to fill a lot of the barn space with extra bedrooms, giving it ten inContinueContinue reading “Another Example of How to Kill any Value in Your House – ten awful bedrooms”

I looked at a house today that had six bedrooms, but four of the bedrooms were at the back of the house. This faced a pretty garden to the north, and we’re in France so that means they received no sun. All winter long and no sun. There were no side windows on the cornerContinueContinue reading “Bedrooms Need Sun”

When it comes to kids, what is the difference between a beach and a lake? The answer: waves. A lot of beaches have waves that make them unsuitable for little kids, like this beach at Biarritz:     Those waves would eat up my kids. Even with little waves it is hard to relax atContinueContinue reading “What is the Difference between a French Beach and a French Lake?”

While house hunting we checked out an old farmhouse. On the surface it looked like a fine property with a big, quality farmhouse on three hectares of land. But there were a few major problems that reduced its value to the point where we wouldn’t make an offer. The land is already in use Pretty,ContinueContinue reading “How to Ruin the Value of an old French Farmhouse”