I know it is silly but I am not sure how big the lot is. I went to the majors' office a couple of years ago and it seems like it is about an acre. I know here it is hectares so I think it was close to an acre. I don't have any certifications. Absolutely nothing has been done to the land in probably 15 years. It is a 6 bedroom old Vosges farm house built in the 1700's. I think some people that lived here used to have goats. We've had some old people stop by that said they were born here and there is a completely fallen down the little house, I assume for goats, no more than three or four in the top back of the property. So there has been no real garden, no animals, nothing. Basically, it was wild except for trimming around the house. We had a man come the last two years to cut things down. We've trimmed some
trees and he cut down loads of wild blackberries that were matted so tight you couldn't walk anywhere. This year it is a boom of all kinds of different flowers. I don't know what they all are. We have jonquils and daisies and clover and some cute blue flowers and pink flowers and thistles. We had one foxglove, Digitalis last year. Ferns. There are 4
apple trees but the blooms don't stick. I can't trim them myself. I tried but I am 5'3" and they are big, so that didn't happen. We have the
fence around the property but there are parts that need repairs. Soon we are renting out one room as B&B. We have a big garage and sometimes have wine tastings there but not often. The property is 3 tiers. So not the best for mowing hay. They do that all around us here but our property would be hard. The back tier has pine and I am not sure right now what they are called, but I think birch? You can take
water from them in March by tapping them. A large part of the property is just grass, but it is on an incline and there are trees in the back, then we have the side
yard which is a fairly steep slope. The house sits on the middle level. Then there is a big rock wall about 3 or 4 feet high and down there is a herb fiasco. I don't even know how to guess how many pounds of nettles are down there but it is a lot. Plus other stuff. There are really pretty pink flowers too, long type and the butterflies are everywhere. I've been trying to think of something that would make this a real farm, and not just a token farm. The garage has been tiled and there is wine closets and other furniture in the old stalls so that has changed from an old farm. Then the garage has 3 levels and the bottoms is an old
bread oven we would like to fix but it is always a budget issue. In the states, there are grants to help people with all kind of farming start-ups. I fancied raising long wool sheep and looked into that in the states and there were some good ideas except where I lived there was a water shortage and it was too hot. So that didn't happen. I read something here once, but my French is not so good, about some kind of money a person could get if they had a historical age farm that could be seen from the main road. I don't know where I put that information and I've searched on the internet and haven't found anything. I just have been trying to think of something that could make the place productive in such a way as to help with the maintenance. Or a tax break or something. We've had to repair the garage roof that was sagging. We just updated a bit two bathrooms. Still, it isn't a farm to me unless you grow something. Something productive. I just dug out all of the drainage ditches on the lower tier and that seemed to make everything really grow. Before that, it was a bog. So yeah I just would love to have something be more farm like on the farm. Something to produce and
sell. I had a whole area really going good and getting cleaned up earlier in the year hoping to plant a garden but as soon as I got as far as I could it rained like crazy for weeks then it was a full blown growth spurt and I can't keep up. My husband mows the lawn. He is not big into working outside and he has a tricky back so he has to be careful. The guy in front of us has a lot that he mows with a
tractor and he raises about 4 or 5
beef per year but his lot is flat. So I am pretty much out of ideas. My husband has other priorities than fixing the
fence, and I just keep trying to figure out how to get the property to produce something to help pay for the cost of keeping it up and also making it cooler. I think it would be neat to have a farm that actually produced something. I just have studied these nettles and would love to sell them but I am scared to try and harvest all of that myself. They hurt. I am up for ideas but the problem is I need a budget, and the heating for the year and repairs seems to eat any hope of that up.
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So it has no shortage value also since people " had " to eat it during WWII it has little love these days as it's a reminder of bad times
