Details of our life in the French countryside

This is part of our "neighborhood" — it's just two miles from Saint-Aignan. We are surrounded by vineyard plots and fields where crops including rapeseed, sunflowers, and wheat are grown. There are woods too, and maybe two three dozen houses.

This is a Christmas cactus that we found in the house when we moved in. It bloomed faithfully in December for many years. I still have some of these plants that I grew from cuttings, but so far no flowers this year.

A lot of us in the neighborhood heat with wood. We had a wood-burning stove put inside our fireplace in 2006 and have heated mostly with wood since then. We also have a boiler that burns fuel oil and radiators in every room in the house. Wood is a lot cheaper to heat with than fuel oil, but it's also a lot more work (cutting, stacking, carrying the logs). We have a good balance with the two systems, and if the power goes out so does our boiler. But we have the woodstove for heat and can even do some cooking on it.

Our December sunsets can be spectacular. We have good sunrises and sunsets all year long, in fact.

Have a look at this house for sale in our village. The asking price, including closing costs, is 134,375€ — a little less than $150,000 U.S. at today's exchange rate. To me it looks tempting. If we were thinking of buying right now, we'd be looking for a place with less land and fewer stairs to climb. This one comes close to fitting the bill.