About us

A project that became our reality

Everything began when we realised that we did not enjoy fully our lives as we really wanted to. Our professional activities did not comply with our state of mind anymore and we had the feeling that something was missing in our lives.... What could we do to fix that? 

We discussed and thought a lot... After a wonderful root stay in Catalunya, we began putting words on our deepest needs. Welcoming people in a pleasant place, living surrounded by nature, safely producing part of what we eat, and our project is progressively getting into reality.

The question is: where will we be launching this nice project? Our research led us only a few kilometres from where we were already living, in Montfort en Chalosse, in the heart of the Landes...

The house

Its name is Berdis… and honestly, I cannot remember when and how we decided that this place would be our place to be...

The 1st time we "met" Berdis, it had been abandoned for some years and it was surrounded by brambles... with this wild nature, we could not imagine that we would ever enjoy the orchard or the surrounding woods again... 

Still... Berdis - this former farm from late 19th century with its wine cellar and vineyard - enchanted us with its spaces and its view!! All the village's commodities available on foot and yet far from everything; so quiet in the countryside and its wonderful view on the Pyrenees (only when they want to show up...)

«Some» work to do, but Berdis seemed to be just perfect to welcome our family and ambitious projects.

Our state of mind

To slow down

To come back to simpler values, more authenticity, to come closer to the human being.

To stop excessive consumption.

To reconnect with nature: learn how to observe it, accept that we can learn from it, stop being control freak with our environment.

To share this with people coming from here and there.

Our vision

Things are so easy to say, but it is not that easy to come back to simpler things and limit our impact on our environment... How to manage this?

Do what we can do by ourselves and produce most of what we consume is an essential point for us. Therefore, we try to harvest our own vegetables and fruits throughout the year.

Hens and ducks provide us good eggs and some meat sometimes; pigs provide us many cuddles and great laugh but maybe someday some meat too. Animal wellbeing is obvious for us. Our animals help us on a daily basis, and we try to give them back what they give us by taking care of them as good as we can and offering them the best life possible.

Bread, yogurt, and other pastries are always homemade.

What we cannot produce, we try to get it locally and - obviously! - on the right season.

In order to limit our impact on our environment, we also made some choices in our house: a pellets boiler was installed for the global heating of the house and the former space of the gas tank became a duck pond!

The waste waters are processed through a waste stabilization process: some reeds purify the waste waters of the house.

Low consumption bulbs are installed everywhere in the house, the household appliances are chosen regarding their electricity consumption, there are several rainwater tanks outside in order to water the garden...

In addition, most of the cosmetic and household products are homemade too; we compost the vegetable wastes, we sort out our home wastes; we prefer using solid more that liquid products; we try to use less packaged products; we try to bargain hunt as often as possible… and we love that!

These are some examples of what we daily do to limit our impact on our environment.

Little things but still...

We also chose to create a natural pond instead of our little garden in order to create an ecosystem preserving biodiversity. Dragonflies, frogs, and other insects come and enjoy this stretch of water only filtered by plants and brewed by a solar pump. A little bathing area allows us to get fresher when it is very hot outside.

A project? Several projects!

Les chemins de Berdis, is definitely a global life project for us, and it is made of 2 main projects:

The guesthouse and cottage rental, on the one hand. Sandrine's part, who loves receiving people and taking care of everyone.

The orchard on the other hand. Jérémies' part, who is a real nature lover and who only feels good outside!

Working hand in hand - together but almost always separately! - this is how we work daily!