it's ok to dream...

So a friend of ours lives in this small village not too far away.  His neighbor died a few months ago and well, we just fell in love.  It's not for sale yet, but sometime soon...

Ok it's not a beautiful chateau... but it's a house.  Not what we're interested in, but it's a plus!  Take off the stucco to reveal the stones...  Anyways...

Theres the barn in the back that we love and that we'd turn into our house.  The green house is behind us and if you go through that little door in the middle, you go too the garden.

Theres the garden with the amazing view.  The weather wasn't so great that day, so you can't see all the mountains in the distance, but you get the idea.

One hectar of land to the right of the property..  to the tree line.

The barn from the "view" side, the view is down behind me.

Can't you imagine a huge bay window overlooking the valley and mountains??  Actually, two bay windows.  One on the 2nd floor (the living room) and one on the ground floor (the parental suite).

yes, that view!

To the right, it's a garage I guess, with a stone wine cellar underground.  If you go through that little door you arrive at the green house and the street.

Isn't it just wonderful?  Lots of work though!

from scratch...

A few weeks ago I planted some seeds in this nifty "seeder" (?) and have lately been seeing some sprouts!  It's very exciting, I check on them maybe every 30 minutes.  =)

my plantastic seed organiser

In the front you can see my cucumber sprouts, and in the back they are cauliflower sprouts.

zucchini sprouts

cucumber sprouts from a different angle

I also planted beetroot seeds in the vegetable garden and I noticed for the first time today some tiny little red sprouts.  Aren't they cute???

nature and nurture

Our beautiful vegetable garden...

(my camera takes horrible pictures, so these are courtesy of my soon to be sister-in-law =) 

The "tuiles" or roof tiles that we use to protect the plants when the weather is bad.

carrots

big blooming salads

a gorgeous salad

potatoes

some cherries...

Chateau de Val

A few weeks ago, when Pan's sister was visiting, we decided to talk a little road trip.  We wanted to see the Chateau de Val, and on the way we stopped to take some pictures of the landscape.  Isn't it just gorgeous?

In the picture above, you can see the view of the castle from the road.  Can you see it?  

Some history:

The last family to live in the castle were evicted by EDF, the French Electric company, in 1946.  EDF decided to flood the valley to make a dam, and in the process also evicted a few towns that were located in the valley.  EDF had assumed that the dam would drown the castle, but after the flooding, the castle stayed unharmed and was not touched by the water level.  EDF asked the family if they wanted to return to the castle, but they said no because the farm and gardens had disappeared.  So when you look at the pictures, you can imagine that where the water is now, 60 years ago, there were villages and farmland.  EDF didn't want the responsibility of maintaining the castle, so they sold it to the nearby town of Bort-les-Orgues.

A perfect view of what was the valley, before the dam.

The beams in the tower roof.

love it

spice it up

I've had a few comments form people saying that I've been slacking off, and I want to apologize.  I've just been so busy lately.  Anyhows, I've been having fun with some of the goodies I brought back from Morocco...  one of my favorite things that we brought back from our trip...

paprika, hot pepper, cinnamon, coriander, ginger, curry, harissa, cumin...  can you tell which is which?  I had a hard time identifying the contents of the plastic baggies they gave me.  But in the end I figured it out.  Although I do wish I had brought back more curry and harissa...  Oh well, next time!  Let's just hope they last me a long time.  At this rate, however...

The countryside of Morocco

After a few days in Marrakech, we decided to rent a car to visit the countryside.  We really wanted to visit the desert, but that trip would have needed an overnight stay somewhere along the way... so that was out of the question.  We took off at 9am, after a delicious breakfast at our Riad.  Once we left the city walls, the scenery changed drastically.

Some pretty poppies and a little village house on the hill...

Another house on a hill...

We hah lunch at a little restaurant across from the "Cascades d'Ouzoud" and monkeys kept coming to steal our bread.  One monkey even jumped on our table and took two pieces right out of the bread basket!

That's the fellow that stole our bread.  He was the biggest one of all the monkeys we saw.

Little boats you could take to cross the river at the bottom of the waterfall.

The waterfall from the bottom.  I think they are at a height of about 110 meters.

The weather wasn't great, but you could still see some of the mountains.

A cool place we passed, looks like an ancient castle.

A shepherd and his flock along the side of the road, as the sun is trying to peek through!  You see shepherds almost every 500 feet in the countryside.