A Country Life

My brother-in-law, Guillaume, is one of the most interesting people I know. Kind of a jack of all trades that never stops working. Over the past 5 years he has worked after work, on weekends and during holidays to restore his great-grandmother's house to habitable condition. Although there is still a lot of work to do, he was able to move in last fall with his wife and son.

Very tied to the earth, Guillaume gardens, makes his own wines and liquors, raises rabbits and sheep, ect.... It's hard to imagine where he finds time to do it all. Just take a look at his immaculate garden!

Here he's just pulled some black radishes for our meal.


In keeping with being frugal and as free as possible from the energy market, he uses wood stoves to heat his house. Most European homes use water radiators for heating. Although they are very efficient, the heat is a completely different quality than that you get from wood. Radiators tend to heat the air while leaving the floors and walls cold. Wood fires, on the other hand, warm up the air along with all the surfaces and the heat seems more penetrating. It's hard to understand unless you've experienced it.

Last year Guillaume leased a section of forest from the Lorraine region and cut 75 square meters of firewood. At 3.6245 m2 per cord, that comes out to a little over 20 cords! Since the trees are selectively cut in a managed forest and burned in high efficiency double combustion stoves, the result is environmentally friendly with zero net carbon emissions.