Wood for our yard. We visit the woodyard

For months now, back in our thickly forested département, we’ve been looking for wood.  Not to burn this time, nor for the workaday laths and planks which are the stuff of the average d-i-y project.  No, we needed thick, dense lengths, something like the impressive beams you see in houses and barns throughout  France. And given what a common sight these are, they’ve proved incredibly difficult to source.  Kalba had the best idea.  ‘Had you thought of Montcru?’.  Well, no, it was so far away, beyond la Bastide de Serou, that we hadn’t even heard of it.

View from the woodyard

But it was worth a journey.  We’ve never been to such a place.  Miles from anywhere much except lovely Seronais scenery, Robert and his wife run an idyllic looking B&B with woodyard attached.

Buying wood here involves a detailed discussion of your needs.

Robert trundles off with his large pick-up to select likely-looking logs while you stay and play with the cheerfully energetic dogs. Then he hoists the wood into his wonderfully large cutting machine which he somehow manoeuvred over himself from Poland, measures everything you your exact specification, cuts, trims….and hoists it onto your trailer or whatever.

The chosen log is hoisted ready to be cut
Let cutting commence!
Loading our trailer as the horses supervise

Two hours, a cup of coffee together as Robert worked out the bill, and we were off.

If you haven’t eaten chips cooked in duck fat, you haven’t lived. No, really

Time for lunch then though.  L’Enso de Marichott.  If the idea of eating in a shack in a car park doesn’t attract you, you’ve not been to l’Aire du Ségalas , near Castelnau-Durban.  It’s a wooden chalet open only during the summer months, and almost the whole menu is based round duck – the ducks that the owners José and Jean-Luc raise themselves.  In fact they grow much of what you eat, and almost all the rest is local, and organic at that.  We had a quiet lunch, but weekend evenings are the time to go and party there, we’re told. Definitely worth a detour.

L'Enso de Marichott
L’Enso de Marichott

Then we drove home, v-e-r-y carefully.

Back home: no grabs and cranes here….. Just us
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Author: margaret21

I'm retired and live in North Yorkshire, where I walk , write, volunteer and travel as often as I can.

4 thoughts on “Wood for our yard. We visit the woodyard”

  1. Yum Yum….we used to keep ducks but never got to eat any of them – the foxes got them first every time…I know what roast potatoes are like cooked in goose fat though……..It’s lovely to read of your adventures and sounds like everything is a bit of an adventure. When are you opening the guest house!?

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