Cat, House

Ok, so we haven't posted in *ahem* a year. No good excuse except it was the end of the growing season, and then we were busy looking for a house. At the end of last year's growing season we were going to the garden and heard a plaintive meowing from the bushes. Lo and behold, but there was a scared little cat hiding out in the under brush. He was very obviously not used to being outside and didn't know what to do. Mrs. Finch coaxed him out of the bush, and we brought him home. We contacted animal control, no chip, no one reporting a missing cat. We posted signs all around the area where he'd been found as well as on craigslist, in case anyone was looking for him. However, we were pretty sure he had been abandoned there. No one ever contacted us about him, so he became ours.

His name is Mr. Puddles. He's just about the most mellow cat in the world. Mrs. Finch can hold him upside down and he'll just sit there, chillaxing.

We'd been sorta looking for a house for a long time.... that is, we'd been saving money for a house and looking at all the ones we couldn't afford. We ended up in Harvard on a whim, looking for a knitting store for Mrs. Finch. Instantly fell in love with the charming little town. Went home and looked it up, and it was perfect - great schools, farmer friendly, and even our CSA has a pickup here! Can't ask for much more. Oh, well, affordable houses would be nice. There's not really any in Harvard.

We looked and looked for 6 months, before one day in April just deciding - let's go look at a few open houses, see what it's really like. We picked 4-5 in our price range, and then just for kicks, I said, let's go look at one of these that's out of our price range. So we did, and of course, all the ones in our price range sucked and the one out of our price range was totally perfect. Great. So, we ended up using a lot more of our savings for a down payment, but we ended up in our dream house - 2400 sq ft, 3 bedroom 2 bath, 3 car garage with room for a workshop and a full sized loft above that includes a chicken coop, 2 horse stables, central A/C, wood stove, and 12.7 acres of land. Yes, that is not a typo (a lot of it is on a hill, but still!). It's like someone went down our wishlist and just checked off everything we ever wanted.

We were lucky - the sellers were very motivated, and we had no other house we had to wait to sell, so they took our sure thing offer over a couple that were slightly higher, but contingent on the other buyers' homes selling.

We're crazy happy with the house. It needs pretty much nothing, except a riding lawn mower.

We've been here for a month and a half, and we're still amazed every time we wake up that this place is really ours.