Blog in France

Several visitors to the farm have asked me what the ‘Fragnes’ in its name, ‘Les Fragnes’, stands for? And these visitors have been French! If they don’t know, then there’s not much hope for me. We had a theory that it might mean ‘hovel’ since there were two of them...

Springing Into Life It’s well and truly spring here in Creuse. How do we know? Here are 11 sure signs: The cuckoos are calling fit to burst and all the birds are singing. Our nightingale is back. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard one, but it’s such a strange,...

The threat of nakedness is hanging over the animals at Les Fragnes. Why? Because I learnt to spin a week ago. Now I eye up every creature I see with a view to what sort of yarn I could spin from its fur/wool/hair. Everyone knows that llama and alpaca wool...

I often leaf through the some of the old magazines we inherited when we bought Les Fragnes. La Prosperité à la Campagne is one of my favourites. We have issues dating from 1932 and 1933. In the July 1932 issue, I came across an article on electroculture – electric gardening...

Look at my polytunnel now! It wasn’t even that windy! And we positioned the tunnel next to the barn for extra protection. We wired the tunnel framework to two very heavy iron bars. They held it down fine, but the flimsy metal framework sheared or bent at all the joints....