My first guests just left. They were a very sweet French couple from Nimes who were visiting to attend a dog show at the Château Le Haget, a nearby camping site/hotel/sometimes restaurent in a gorgrous 17th cenutry château on 12 hectares of beautiful hiking grounds. If all of my future guests are as polite, I will be a very happy camper! :) Even their hunting dog, which I identified as a Saint-Usuge Spaniel who's competing in the show today was polite and he played very nice

Maybe it was 12 or 15 years ago, but in any case it feels like a lifetime ago that I came to the Gers for the first time. I had always been crazy about foie gras, animal husbandry, gardening, French wine and history in remote places so literally rolled the dice on an Internet search and this region appeared. I signed up on WorkAway , a platform for volunteers to find people with a variety of projects that need to be done. The one that came up that spoke to me most was with a

One of the very first things I did when I moved into my home was to I start a garden. It took a bit of investigation and discovery to figure out where to place it, but I found a good location, just behind the back deck outside of the kitchen. This is my first harvest, and indeed I am proud of these little jewels.

People often wonder and ask: "How did you end up in the Gers from New York City?" It's a bit of an existential question, and I sometimes wonder this myself. But in a nutshell, I have always had a "thing for France." Growing up, I recall seeing a painting of Napoleon at the Philadelphia Art Museum on a white horse bucking up on its hind legs at the battle of Waterloo. I bought the poster, stared at it everyday and he became a personal hero who inspired courage and strength i