Self-Sufficiency & Sustainability
with Permaculture
Le Bois de Grammont

Simple, Economical and Purposeful Living
A Local Vehicle for Global Change
Le Bois de Grammon, 36140 Lourdoueix Saint Michel, Indre, France
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19/09/2005

The Begining

Well here we are after just over one year in France, we came here for many reasons some very personal and some not so personal. The main two reasons where to escape from the day-to-day drudgery of unfulfilling work and the financing of banks and building societies, and of course to live a life more in keeping with nature. We believe we should live life in such a way that it does the planet no harm and if we can, in our own way,
put something back. Both being spiritual beings with faith in a higher power
we also believe this is how we humans were intended to live.
So how is it going so far? We have bought what we hope would be a home which will support our aims of living our chosen life style. We have a modest house, which was much more modest in its original incarnation, with a barn and 5 hectares
. We have a well and several sources or springs for water. The land is set out in 3 distinct parcels one behind the other (see the plan for more detail.) Our original plans have of course changed but for the most part we have progressed as planned in all directions.

The House

The house is in fact a part of the barn; this is a typical design in this part of France. The house was originally just 2 rooms the first room was entered through the front door which was the main room with a concrete sink 1 cold water tap and the fire place, the second room was off of this room to the rear. The adults would have slept in the main room and the children of the family would have slept in the back room.

However things have moved on and our expectations grown somewhat so our intention is to change the house as follows. The two rooms downstairs have been made in to one single room, Kitchen Dinning room and Lounge all in one, with a staircase rising to the old grain loft, converted to 2 bedrooms with en-suit facilities. The kitchen sports an old Rayburn range cooker, which also heats the water and central heating for the whole house. We have a small fire in the lounge area but this proved to be insufficient in the short but very cold central France winter ( -15c was not uncommon over nigh)t. The main bedroom is almost finished (lacking doors and a glazed partition to the bathroom). The second bedroom is still under construction but is functional if needed. The stairs are installed but still lack handrails and spindles, and the downstairs floor is awaiting completion of the tiling. So we are behind in our original plans for the house but, I built the stairs and we planed all the timber for the new Oak floor to the upper floor which did not plan for, we have still to install the kitchen sink, but we have a functional kitchen in the cellar which we did not plan for originally. The Land

Fiona has made great progress with the vegetable garden. Having arrived here more than half way through the growing season last year we shelved most of our plans for the garden. Now however, we are fully self sufficient in all vegetables thanks to the pigs and Harry (Harry Ferguson Tractor), they provided most or the heavy digging work. Fiona has then done 90% of the rest of the work cultivating the vegetables for this year. We have had some soft fruit and we had plenty of free fruit from the hedges in the way of blackberries some of which are now preserved for the winter as blackberry jelly. We are anticipating having enough veg for the rest of the year and well into the next year. So with a winter garden planted and stores from the summer glut we are enjoying a wonderful healthy and varied diet. Last autumn we planted some fruit trees, but have had little fruit from them, and we have lost at least one of the trees to last winter. I have had some luck growing apples and pears from seed this year but of course these will be varied in what they produce and it will be some time before we see any fruit from them anyway. We had hoped to get some fences erected and more hedges planted but we have not had the time to do this yet so this winter we will be very busy erecting new fences laying old hedges and planting cuttings from these to get new hedges on there way.
As well as the vegetable garden we have also planted a small area of maize and swede both of these crops are for animal feed although we hoped to be able to eat some of them ourselves as well. The maize was planted in late May and by August was over 7 feet tall. A friend of ours from back in the UK told Steve that we should cut the whole plant and feed the whole lot to the cows as they would love it and it would increase the milk yield we were getting. So we decided that we would also see if the piglets like it as well and they did the whole crop has now been cut and fed to our animals which has reduced our feed bill for bought in concentrates. The swede was planted in July a little later than it should have been but seems to be growing well and will be fed to our pigs during the winter months as swede if a frost hardy vegetable. We hope to strip graze the swede so that we don't have to harvest it the pigs should graze the tops and then dig up the roots for themselves we hope.

The Animals

This is our true success story we had planned to buy most of the animals we now own, but we have bought more than we had planned. We planned to have a cow for milk, chickens for eggs and meat, rabbits for meat and fur, and some water foul for eggs and meat. However things changed as we went along for one reason or another.

Chickens

Within a week of our arrival we bought 10 3-week-old chicks to feed until ready for the freezer. A week later we then bought 10 hens at point of lay for our eggs and to produce new stock for subsequent years. We acquired a cock from other Brits living over here that had excess stock they did not want; we also acquired (this spring) a couple of broody hens from the same route. The first cock proved to be less than up to the task so we bought 3 Sussex hens and a Sussex cock to go with them. The Sussex breed of chickens is a good duel purpose bird i.e. good for eggs and meat. We have had 6 new chicks crossed with one of the broody hens we acquired and the Sussex cock we bought. So we now have new stock for next year at no extra cost, and so it starts. We did not expect to do so well in our first year and actually produce our own birds without at least a struggle. These in fact walked out of the hedge one day following their mother who was escaping from the chicken run at will and returning for food as she saw fit.

Pigs

Our second purchase was pigs we knew of all the animals we would buy these would be important to us, not just for our own consumption, but also as a cash crop. So we set off for a "fête des animaux" or animal fare, we did so with as usual some idea of what we wanted; but also knowing we might have to compromise, and we did. We would have liked an old breed with distinct markings and loped ears, 3 months old, 3 girls and 1 boy with tackle in order. We bought some fairly none descript animals we liked the look of but of assorted colours with semi loped ears 2 girls and 2 boys who had been castrated. We did arrange to collect another boy with all his tackle in order at a later date though. So we now had 2 girls Rennet and Pippin who would be our mothers to be and 2 boys Patch and Splodge who would frequent the freezer in due course. We collected our new boy complete with working tackle and also another girl at another fair in Saint Denis de Jouet, so we now have a 3rd girl Brambly and James Grieve our own boor. Note all our parent pigs are named after types of apples, a reference to the eventual use of pigs as food accompanied by applesauce. Splodge and Patch have now been dispatch as humanly as we could manage and butchered for the freezer, there is another story here about killing and butchering pigs but I will do this in detail at another time. In May of this year we had our first litters of pigs 22 piglets all three of our sows gave birth, 10 of which where exchanged for a small baler that we will need in subsequent years for hay making. We now have 3 sows pregnant for the second time and due in November so James is proving his worth regularly.

Rabbits

We bought 2 female rabbits and 1 lovely grey male from a not so local Tuesday market, and we exchanged surplus furniture for 2 more females rabbits. This is a story of the old ones are the best. I am sure you have all heard the one that goes "they breed like rabbits." Well I can testify to the true meaning of this. Rabbits breed, its that simple and they keep on breeding with uncommon regularity, the books suggest they need 11 hours of good daylight and clean dry housing. And a plethora of other conditions which are all admirable if you give it to then but really they need to feed and they need to have access to another rabbit of the opposite sex. Guess what they will breed like rabbits, and you will have all the rabbit meat you can eat and give away or sell and each one will give you a wonderful meal or two and a pelt to keep your feet warm, or any other thing you can think of to do this a wonderful soft fury sheet of fur.Cows

At the first of the year's events in the village (the Marie's (Mayor's) annual get-together and report session), we met a local farmer. We spoke only briefly, (mainly due to our lack of French language skills) but agreed to visit his farm and view some cows, which we did. After viewing several cows and brief sales pitch we agreed to buy 2 cows sisters in fact so one would not be lonely on its own. This of course proved expensive but we do enjoy watching them socialising in the field outside our back window. We now have 2 cows Poppy and Clover. The plus side of the cows though was that Poppy was already pregnant and due to calf in May of this year. Jasmine was born in April a couple of weeks early and tail first but a beautiful red/brown calf with a white mark on her forehead, mother Poppy is a Normande and the father was a Limousine the beef cow of this area. We separated mother and calf after 6 weeks, we built a pen in the cowshed that would house the calf, and mother could still see her calf and socialise. After 3 days of bellowing until dark mother got over the loss of her calf and stopped trying to kick me when I was milking her, the calf however still crying and bellowing which induced us in to a fit of sympathy, and we bought her a companion. We now have a small white goat with brown makings Marigold who is the most delightful creature. This had not been a part of our plan but she is so delightful she will probably survive her present companion who is destined for the freezer.
I have now been milking for nearly 4 months and it is all I hoped it would be. I have a wonderful relationship with my one milking cow, and milking goes without event, twice a day. We continued to feed some of the milk back to Jasmine until recently but now we have an abundance of milk, which we have used for many different things. We have acquired a cream separator so we are able to skim milk at will for making butter or just to indulge ourselves with dreamy thick cream, which is a delight. We have also made soft cheese with some success and we will be continuing this activity in to the winter with hard cheese and some mould-ripened cheeses to add to our now varied diet. The excess milk and whey from cheese making we have been feeding to the piglets.
We are now just waiting to see if the visit from the bull belonging to the vendor of the cows has been a success, and I will be milking 2 cows next year.

Geese

In June we bought the last of our present livestock 2 Geese yet to be named, as we can't tell the difference between them. 1 girl and 1 boy and next year we hope they will bring on some eggs and produce 20 or so little geese we can eat or sell by next Christmas.
So all I all our first year in France has been a resounding success we have not succeeded in achieving all our original plans, but we have surpassed our expectations in the produce of food from the land and animals.

Conclusions

We are truly satisfied with our lifestyle and what we can do on our land.
Some questions may arise in you mind reading this; I will answer some of them for you.

No it's not an easy way of life; we have both worked very hard and for more hours than we would in a conventional job, and its 7 days a week.
Yes its easy to get all the information you need to live like this, but it's a lifestyle of learning from experience too.
Yes I would do it all again
No I would not go back to 9 to 5