Cottage dreams...

We now have a young 20-something-yr-old girl renting our cottage. She moved in this past week and lost no time in taking away my shabby-chic decor in there. I told her from the beginning that she could remove anything she didn't need or want in the cottage, and she proceeded to do just that as soon as she paid the rent and got the key. As a result, 75% of the cottage decor ended up on the porch. Which is fine with me, since it was my suggestion that she make herself at home and decorate as she wished. About the only thing that stayed inside the cottage was the DREAM sign over the beds, and she kept the sofas and small kitchen appliances.

I now have a plethora of Victorian and shabby chic items to price and bring to my booth at the antique shop. I took some of the cast-offs to the rooms in the barn, and a few things ended up back here at the house. RW looked at both the apartment over the barn and the guest cottage, but decided the cottage was more her style. She is a country-girl at heart, with no use for frills and fussy things, so I thought she would choose the barn apartment, but she liked the idea of one big room rather than four small ones.

We intend to rent the barn rooms also, rather than always having them empty, and we're hoping that possibly two of RW's friends might decide to split the rent on that two-bedroom apartment. We had hopes of keeping both structures ready for visiting family and friends, but that hasn't happened all that often since we moved up here, so we decided to turn the two buildings into money-makers.

RW seems happy over there in the cottage, and she's a hard-working girl with good common sense, so we hope her reign in the cottage is a long one.

The goldfish seem to be fine in the fountain. They're eating up the algae in there like they're supposed to, plus I bought a can of goldfish food to sprinkle on top of the water every few days. When the fish swim to the top of the water to gobble up the flakes, it's easy to count them and so far, all twelve are still there. I hope luck holds out and we don't lose any fish to the raccoons or the egrets.... my intention was not to have a goldfish buffet out in the front courtyard.

I have to say that I do miss having chickens... and I did think we could get a very small coop to hold just two hens... but then sooner or later (most likely sooner) we would be losing the hens to the hawks or to foxes or coyotes, and that's just too heart-breaking to go through again.

The bluebonnets were beautiful this year.... especially in our field beyond the barn. An ocean of blue from nearly one end to the other, and you couldn't help but stare at all that blue from the porch. The paintbrushes and wild roses are also up and covering patches of the fields with red and pink, and pretty soon we will have the yellow Texas stars blooming and it will look like the sun exploded on the pastures.

Spring is a beautiful time up here in the Hill Country, what with all the wildflower colors that paint the green fields with Nature's touch of an Impressionist's brush.  The weather has been perfect, with cooler temperatures in the morning and then below 90 degrees for the rest of the day. The summer heat with over 100-degree temperatures seems like a life-time away but I know that will be starting in a heart-beat.  Spring in Texas.... enjoy it while you can.