Our Move to the Farm

It has taken three years and we’re far from finished.  But lock, stock and barrels, we have now officially moved to the farm.

ancient barrels
what we carried

A hundred years ago John’s great-uncle bought this land on a hilltop, with its enchanting chateau on the river below.  It was handed down to successive generations, and during the lifetime of his parents, family life in the big house made sense.  When they died that logic seemed to evaporate. Some of the current descendents are separated by an ocean and the joint maintenance of a far-away petit chateau turned out to be more than blood alone could sustain.

The Rose Room
l’ancien chambre de la Maitresse de Maison

Our hearts were broken as we gaped at the family treasure about to be lost.  But as fate would have it, John had already begun the process of transforming an old cow barn near the vineyard into a small winery. He cleared out the whole messy thing himself – tore apart beams, installed an enormous door and a bright window, insulated the roof…

cow barn before
cow barn before
cow barn after (the new winery)
cow barn after   (new tanks in the new winery)

The shiny wine tanks arrived and we celebrated our first harvest and the making of our first wine. Days and nights were spent trekking up to the winery, sometimes at 2 am to check the fermentation, often before dawn to check the cooling, always after dark for one last tucking in.  We were seduced by the sky on top of this hill – glorious dawns, magical sunsets and a night sky lit by an infinity of stars!

Silhouette of Stone's Edge cliff
Silhouette of Stone’s Edge cliff at sunset – photo by Michele Marechal

And so a new logic set in, a new love.   Why sleep apart?

We held on to the land.   An old, abandoned farmhouse offered stone walls and a roof in need of repair. Everything else had to be gutted. The site was hidden by a ramshackle chicken coop, ill-placed, draggly trees, raggedy bushes, unsightly electric lines.  The bulldozer thrashed and shook and leveled.

hilltop obscured, ramshackle chicken coop
hilltop obscured, ramshackle chicken coop…
bulldozer begins
bulldozer begins

bulldozer clearing land, felling tree

gutting the old farmhouse
gutting the old farmhouse

It took months to clear up the debris by hand, and a year for John and Henri to tear off the ivy smothering the face of the cliff.

after years of neglect, clearing the stone cliff face and field
clearing the stone cliff face and field
land cleared at cliff's edge
first signs of clarity

And then, one day, lo and behold, a view of the Dordogne valley appeared.

View from the Farm
View from the Farm

All our lives we’ve been city dwellers. I wouldn’t change that for anything.  But recently the quiet and the earth and the creatures have been refashioning us, staking their claims in our hearts.   My friend Lori says that painful endings should be seen as wonderful beginnings in disguise.   Now we take a little walk around the farm each night and when we count our blisters, we also count our lucky stars.

Rainbow over the Farmhouse at Stone's Edge
Rainbow over the Farmhouse at Stone’s Edge

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