The Somerset Farmhouse

  Since childhood, cats were my favorite animal to pet and love on.  I always wanted one - but little did I realize how many would end up under my care: a grand total of 15! Credit goes to my first cat, Koshka , who appeared near the garage on a winter's night in my hometown.  She was cold, thin, and hungry, and meowing a lot for food.  At first, we had her set up in the garage with food and a warm place to sleep.  But, as fate would have it, she became a house cat.  Unfortunately, her life was tragically cut short several years later - Koshka had an autoimmune disease we knew nothing about until she was dying in front of us.  Her death shattered me.   I knew nothing about cats and what kind of illnesses they can get.  Those sweet faces hide everything until they can't anymore.   This past year's experience with the felines on the farm has been one of both joy and sadness.  I'll start with the happy parts first. Buttersc...

As promised, I am back with another One Year Later post! Last time, I gave you all a brief walkthrough of the renovations that the farmhouse had undergone.  Each room presented its own challenges: carpet, wallpaper, flooring repairs, cracked ceilings , etc.  Every wall needed some spackling and a fresh coat of paint.  But what else needed a fresh revival was the acreage outside ! Out back used to be a kitchen garden that had become overtaken by grass.  Upon our arrival, I thought that flat bit of land was interesting and quickly found out it was indeed used for gardening.  Well, perfect setup to do our own thing, right? That's exactly what we did this year! Not only did we start experimenting growing our own produce, but we also fixed up the outside of the house, as you see snippets of in the collage below.  Sunflowers were planted out front, mom fixed up the exterior of the back porch, and we planted rows of zinnias (with the goal in mind of selling c...