Update on Remodeling

Amazing, but I just realized this morning that we have moved to Brouillard country!  I will explain---When we were in France, every morning it seemed, we would be met with warning signs as we got onto a highway--BROUILLARD SOYEZ PRUDENT!  It was funny to see our name plastered all over the highways.  I suppose the signs could’ve been warning the French that the Brouillards were in the country. OR it could’ve been giving Ray & me a special message to be careful.  But, nope, it was just a warning about the fog--“Brouillard” being the word for fog in French. 

So here we are—living in the Great SMOKY Mountains/Blue Ridge Mountains—with all the clouds coming down to rest in the mountain valleys and peaks every night and rising slowly as they awake each morning.  Fog everywhere.  Brouillard Country. 

I so love driving by the farms around here, but I’m so nosey about what the farmers are doing.  I go by and wonder why only half of one farmer’s corn crop has been harvested.  Why is he waiting?  Does he not want to glut the market with all of his crop at once?  Did he plant them at different times?  Is the corn that is still on the stalks meant for a different purpose than that which was harvested last month? 

Why is the tractor sitting just waiting on one corner of the field?  Where are the two horses this morning that usually stand under the trees to talk?  Questions, questions, questions.  I told you, I’m very nosey.

I wish the farmers would leave signs on the edge of their properties that clue me into what is going on.  “Hi Susan, the horses wanted to stay in the barn this morning because of the drizzle.” 

“Hi Passersby, this corn is being saved for cattle feed.”

“Nope, not replanting corn, letting field go fallow.”

Now how helpful that would be.  Then I wouldn’t have to assault Ray with questions every time we leave the house.  Questions for which he has no answer as he has never planted a field or kept horses. 

Update on remodeling of house:  STILL remodeling.  Plans changing all the time.  We’ll be so certain that we’re going in one direction then one of us will get a new idea and all the old plans are out the window.  Next on the list is finishing the sunroom, then putting in a glass door from what will be the dining room to the sunroom.  Then a china cabinet for the wall that we’ll close in to create a larger pantry.  Then do a window box looking out onto the trees where the double doors in the living room are now.  Then hardwood floors for living room/dining room—which we had to drive over two hours to get since it took us 5 months to finally agree on the floor then they quit carrying it and the only store to still have it was in South Carolina.  Then my bathroom remodel.  Then redo all the closets along with making a cedar closet in the basement.

After all this, then we’ll FINALLY get around to making what is now the Master into a library and adding on the new Master Suite, which, at this moment, will include a spiral staircase up to my tower office!  Here at Abbotsford Cottage, I’ll have a turret of sorts, just like Sir Walter Scott did at HIS Abbotsford House.

P.S. I just have to mention that I feel truly blesses to be able to live in this spot--this morning, we havae doves cooing on the front porch and a totally white squirrel is now visiting.  : )

Katie & Russ's Otis checking out the pond

Tentative plan for my tower office

Sunrise nearby