So what's the dream?

For reasons I won't go in to here we both found ourselves without jobs in January, so we decided to go to Chamonix for the winter and then move in to the farm in May. The theory being that our first impressions of living there would be good rather than how cold it was. Plus we just wanted to go skiing and see various friends who were in Chamonix for the winter too... You can see what we got up to in Chamonix here.

The plan now is to move in in May and to get a number of animals and become as self sufficent as we can. The wedding we are going to in June will hopefully only cause a minor hiccup in progress (surely pigs, chickens etc can feed themselves for a few days??)

• Initial plans for animals include pigs (on order), chickens, rabbits, a cat, a dog and horses. Other possibilities are bees, ducks, sheep, goats and cows...
• The list of fruit and veg is too long to include here but we plan on growing for ourselves as well as for the animal and barley and hops for brewing beer.
• Water currently comes from a spring and we would like to be able to keep it like that.
• Heating and hot water we are thinking of solar tubes and a wood gasification boiler as there is a lot of sun and wood on the property.
• We will consider solar PV as well although it is perhaps too expensive to install.
• We would like to develop cheesemaking, brewing, baking and conserving skills
• Along with all this we have hobbies we would like to start or develop such as knitting, spinning, playing the piano (Doug), horse riding, skiing, hill walking, wood turning or carving (we have so much wood)
• We hope to be able to sell excess fruit, veg and animals but need to understand the practicalities of this in red tape entangled France where the tax system appears to be comprehensible by noone, not even the tax man.
  
• We would also like to convert the sheep barn (by which I mean two walls of stones in danger of collapsing at any moment) in to a small rental cottage and cater for cyclests and perhaps horse riders in the future.
• Any other ideas for saving/earning money greatly appreciated

Watch this space to see what actually happens...

Doug in his natural habitat